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THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH 
LANGUAGE. 



HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH 
LANGUAGE 



THE USE OF THE JUNIOR CLASSES IN COLLEGES 
AND THE HIGHER CLASSES IN SCHOOLS. 



GEORGE L. CRAIK, 

PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN 
queen's college, BELFAST. 



LONDON : 
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193 PICCADILLY. 

1851. 



TEvoTs 






LONDON : 

Printed by G. Barclay, Castle Street, Leicester Square. 



PREFACE. 



One of the duties of the Professors of History 
and of English Literature in the Queen^s Uni- 
ve:3ity^ Ireland^ is to teach for one Term a Class 

Lit led of the English Language^ composed of 

ents of the first year. The present Outlines 

a an abstract from part of the course of Lectures 

iiich has been delivered to that Class at Belfast 
^ the last two Sessions ; the business of the Class 
being conducted by means of Critical Readings^ and 
Exercises in Essay- writings as well as by Examina- 
tions upon the Lectures. 

The work^ however, has been drawn up in such 
a manner as to present a connected though suc- 
cinct view of the essentials of the subject, and 
therefore to be suited both for the general reader 
and for being used as a Text-book in any place of 
education in which English Philology is one of the 
departments of study. 



PREFACE. 



To the series of propositions printed in a larger 
type, wliich embody the leading facts constituting 
the History of the Language, and which perhaps 
might be advantageously committed to memory by 
young persons, have been subjoined the more m 
important of those minor and subsidiary particu- 
lars brought forward in the Lectures of which I 
have been accustomed to direct that notes should 
be taken. In this way the student or reader is 
put in possession of all the information necessary 
for the complete understanding of the general 
statements, and for following the survey of the 
subject so far as they carry it. 

Compendious, too, and elementary as the book 
is, it is constructed in part with a view to its 
serving as an introduction both to English History 
and to so much of the great modern science of 
Ethnology as depends upon the descent and rela- 
tionship of languages. 

The Specimens of the Language in its successive 
stages, which are appended, are far from displaying 
a complete map of its progress and developement ; 
yet they furnish many illustrations of the general 
course which it has taken, and of the nature of the 
changes which have brought it from the original 
Anglo-Saxon to its present state. Every necessary 
explanation of those of earlier date which I have 



PREFACE. Ml 

been able to supply will be found in tlie translations 
or glossarial interpretations annexed. In some few 
instances I have been obliged to content myself 
with the commonly received text^ even where its 
correctness may be somewhat doubtful^ and where 
it might perhaps admit of being amended by re- 
course to better manuscripts ; but I believe that 
the most trustworthy printed editions have in all 
cases been consulted and adhered to. 

G. L. C. 



London, October 1851. 



OUTLINES, 



I. There are two kinds of Evidence by which the 
origin or composition of any product may be 
attested:— the Internal; and the External, or 
Historical. 

The distinction is, that the Internal Evidence is fur- 
nished by the product itself ; the External, by something 
else. 

I find a block of stone lying in a field ; whence has 
it come or been brought ? It cannot have grown out of 
the earth, and it was not wont to be there. Examining 
the nature and quality of the stone, I ascertain them to 
be the same with those of a neighbouiing rock with which 
I am well acquainted. This is internal evidence, evi- 
dence afforded by the fragment itseK, that it has been 
detached from that rock. External evidence to the same 
effect would be the traces of its passage along the de- 
scending ground from the rock to its present position, or 
the declaration of some observer who had actually seen 
it breaking off or roUing down. 



Ji OUTLINES OF THE HISTOEY OF 

But the distinction is not always so simple. What 
would be any correspondence that might be detected 
between the surface of the stone, where it had appa- 
rently been recently broken off from something else, and 
a freshly exposed part of the rock ? It would be in- 
ternal evidence to the mind having already a know- 
ledge of the state of the rock, but only external to him 
to whom the state of the rock was an after discovery. 
For, in the former case, the fact, in the particular light 
or presentment in which alone it is evidence, — that^s 
to say, as connecting the stone with the rock, — would 
be supplied by the object of speculation itself; in the 
latter case, it would be supplied by something without 
the object of speculation. 

This goes to illustrate and explain what we so often 
see, the total failure of a fact or appearance, which leads 
one observer to a certain conclusion, to produce any 
such conviction or impression upon another person of 
equal general intelligence and acuteness, and equally 
cognizant of the particular fact. The fact meets with 
something to coalesce with in the one mind wliich it 
does not find in the other. Niebuhr has put this 
strikingly, in reference to himself and his readers, in 
commencing the second volume of his History of 
Home: — "When an inquirer, after gazing for years, 
with ever renewed, undeviating stedfastness, sees the 
histoiy of mistaken, misrepresented, and forgotten events 
rise out of mists and darkness, and assume substance 
and shape, as the scarcely visible aerial form of the 
nymph in the Sclavonic tale takes the body of an 
earthly maiden beneath the yearning gaze of love, — 
when by unwearied and conscientious examination he is 
continually gaining a clearer insight into the connexion 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 6 

of all its parts, and discerns that immediate expression 
of reality which emanates from life, — he has a right to 
demand that others, who merely throw their looks by 
the way on the region where he lives and has taken 
up his home, should not deny the correctness of his 
views because they perceive nothing of the kind. The 
learned naturalist, who has never left his native town, 
will not recognise the animars track by which the 
hunter is guided ; and if any one, on going into Ben- 
venuto's prison, when his eyes had for months been 
accustomed to see the objects around him, had asserted 
that Benvenuto, like himself, could not distinguish 
anything in the darkness, he would surely have been 
somewhat presumptuous." 

External evidence is usually the clearer and more 
precise in its intimations, as well as the more obtru- 
sive or the more readily come by ; it is in these respects 
like other superficial or outside things ; but internal 
evidence, when its interpretation is free from doubt, is 
the more trustworthy and conclusive. The mind, how- 
ever, is not satisfied without a concuiTence of the two 
kinds of evidence whenever the case seems to admit of 
it. And, when there is such a concurrence, the one 
kind of evidence will often enable us to carry our 
deductions and conclusions farther than the other. 

It is very rarely, if ever, that internal evidence is 
absolutely wanting ; external evidence frequently is. A 
familiar instance of evidence which is purely internal is 
that with which Paley sets out in his work on Natural 
Theology, of a watch in motion found by a person who 
had never seen or heard of such a contrivance, but who 
at once and without any doubt infers it to be the work 



4 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOBY OF 

of an intelligent and designing mind. His inference 
to that extent could hardly have been strengthened by 
the addition of any amount of external evidence. 

In such questions, however, as the authorship of an 
anonymous book, or the parentage of a picture the 
painter of which is unknown, the internal e\ddence, 
which we always have, and without w^hich in such a 
case no external evidence would be sufficient to produce 
perfect conviction, at least to a mind of any critical 
sagacity, is generally rendered much more forcible by 
the support of external evidence. 

It is the same with questions relating to the affiliation 
and connexion of languages. Here, too, the internal 
evidence, or that pa^esented by the languages themselves, 
is indispensable ; but such external e\ddence as is to be 
had is not to be disregarded. It demands, at least, 
always to be explained, and to be show^n to be consistent 
with the internal evidence ; and it sometimes serves as 
a useful index to the dhection in which the internal 
evidence is to be looked for or pursued. 

For the latter reason it is convenient in questions of 
this nature to begin with the consideration of the exter- 
nal or historical evidence. 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



II. The First of the facts constituting the External 
or Historical Evidence that we have in regard 
to the sources of the English language is, 
that the country in which it is spoken and 
has grown up appears to have been occupied 
at an early date, in whole or in part, by a 
Celtic population. 

The earliest express statement that has come down to 
us in regard to the language spoken in the country now 
called England is that of Tacitus, who, writing in the 
first century of our era, says (Agricola, 11) of those of 
the Britons of his day who were nearest to Gaul, that 
they were probably of Gallic extraction, and that their 
speech was not very different from that of the Gauls 
{sermo hand midtum diversus). 

It may be questioned, however, whether this state- 
ment, rightly understood, would warrant us in coming 
to the conclusion which it has been commonly held to 
establish ; namely, that the portion of the British popu- 
lation which had been derived from Gaul was of Celtic 
race and spoke a Celtic tongue. 

For Caesar (Com. v. 1*2), wiiting a centmy before 
Tacitus, although he says nothing about the language 
of the Britons, in asserting as a fact what Tacitus 
advances as a probability, that the Britons dwelling 
along the coast opposite to Gaul had originally come 
from that countiy, particularises Belgium as the part of 



6 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOKY OF 

Gaul whence they had emigrated; and elsewhere (i. 1, 
and ii. 4) he tells us that the Belgae were for the 
greater part of Germanic descent, and that both they 
and the Aquitani differed in language, as well as in 
institutions and laws, from the proper Gauls, or Celts 
as they were called in their own tongue. 

From all this it has been contended that the language 
of at least a part of the population of Britain, when the 
country first became knowTi to the Romans, must have 
been not a Celtic but a Germanic language. This view 
was first proposed by the Scottish antiquary. Sir John 
Clerk of Pennicuick, in a " Dissertation on the Ancient 
Language of Britain," written in 1742, but first pub- 
lished in 1782, in the first volume of the Bibliotheca 
Topographica Britannica ; and it was afterwards main- 
tained, with much ingenuity and learning, by John Pin- 
kerton, in his " Enquiry into the History of Scotland 
preceding the Reign of Malcolm III." (2 vols. 8vo. 
Edinburgh, 1789; republished in 1794 and in 1814). 
Pinkerton states (i. 363) that he had not happened to 
see Clerk's Dissertation till after the materials for his 
own work were collected. 

Nevertheless, it is by no means universally admitted 
that the people of Belgic Gaul, whatever may have been 
their origin, spoke a Germanic language. It is con- 
tended that Caesar's statement can only mean that they 
spoke a different dialect from the people of Celtic Gaul ; 
and that, if they w^ere Germans by descent, they had, 
after their settlement in Gaul, exchanged their ances- 
tral speech for the common language of that country. 
In this undecided state of the question respecting the 
language of the Belgae, recourse has been had, for 
evidence in regard to the earliest language spoken in 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 7 

Britain, to the ancient topogi'aphical nomenclature of 
the country, that is, the oldest names of places and 
natural objects in it. These, which are always oiigin- 
ally significant, are the surest evidence we can have in 
regard to the language spoken in any countiy at the time 
when they were imposed. The ancient topographical 
nomenclature of Britain is elaborately investigated by 
George Chalmers in the first volume of his Caledonia 
(3 vols. 4to., 1810-24); and the subject has also been 
more recently discussed by the late Rev. Richard Gar- 
nett in a paper printed in the Proceedings of the 
Philological Society (i. 119). Whatever differences of 
opinion may still exist upon subordinate points, there is 
now no dissent from the general conclusion arrived at 
by both of these writers, that the oldest topographical 
nomenclature everywhere in Britain is Celtic. This is 
the case in the parts of the country which Caesar states 
to have been colonised from Belgic Gaul, as well as 
elsewhere. Kent, for instance, is a Celtic name, and 
Thames is a Celtic name. Mr. Garnett further holds 
the topographical nomenclature of France and that of 
ancient South Britain to belong to the same form of the 
Celtic, namely, the Cambrian, or Welsh; and he con- 
ceives that to be the earliest and least corrupted form 
now subsisting. 

It should be obseiTed, however, that the fact of the 
most ancient topographical nomenclature of the Belgic 
parts of Gaul and Britain being Celtic does not prove 
that the Belgic colonists in either case spoke a Celtic 
language ; for the names may have been imposed by 
preceding occupants of Celtic race. It only proves that 
the parts occupied by the Belgic colonists must, as well 
as the rest of the countiy, have been at one time in the 



8 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 

possession of a Celtic population ; which is enough for 
the purpose in hand. 

It should also be mentioned that Mr. Gamett's sup- 
position of the most ancient British topographical names 
being all Welsh is inconsistent with a theory which has 
been generally accepted since it was first put forward 
by the learned Edvrard Lhuyd, in the Preface to the 
Welsh part of his Archmologia Britannica (folio, Oxford, 
1707.) '-^^ Lhuyd argaes, from the names of rivers and 
mountains throughout both Wales and the rest of South 
Britain, that a Celtic people of the Irish or Gaelic 
branch must have preceded the Welsh in the occupation 
of the country ; and that these Gwydhelians, as he calls 
them, had been forced by the Welsh to retire for the 
greater part to the North and to Ireland. 

But, in sufficient proof of the general statements at the 
head of the section, we have the standing testimony of 
the great fact, that a considerable Celtic population, re- 
taining its peculiar speech, still subsists in the occupation 
of a part of South Britain, its possession of which is his- 
torically known to be of very ancient origin, and cannot 
be probably accounted for otherwise than upon its own 
tradition, supported by the whole current of its national 
literature, that it is the remnant of a race which the 
Romans found spread over a much larger extent of the 
country, and the portion of which that escaped destruc- 
tion, or presented its independence, on the Saxon in- 
vasion, was then forced to retire within its present 
narrow limits. 

* Of this preface, which is in Welsh, an English translation 
is given in the Thu-d Appendix to Archbishop Nicolson's Irish 
Historical Library, 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



III. The Second fact is, that from about the middle 
of the First Century of our era till after the 
commencement of the Fifth, or for not much 
short of 400 years, South Britain was a Roman 
province, and extensively occupied by colonists 
speaking the Latin tongue. 

The first Roman invasion of Britain under Julius 
Caesar took place late in the summer of the year b.g. 55. 
According to a calculation of Dr. Edmund Halley, the 
great astronomer, published in the PJiilosophical Trans- 
actions,^- the day was the Q6th of August. On this 
occasion, the Roman general remained only till about 
the 20th of September, nor did he advance into the 
country ; but he returned in May of the year fol- 
lowing, B.C. 54, when he compelled several of the 
princes and states in the south-eastern part of the 
island to surrender and give him hostages. The Bri- 
tons were left unmolested for eighty years from this 
time, till, in a.d. 26, on Augustus threatening a new 
invasion, they sent an embassy to him in Gaul, and 
consented to acknowledge the Roinan dominion by the 
payment of tribute. The actual subjugation of Britain, 
however, did not commence till a.d. 43, in the reign 
of the Emperor Claudius ; nor was it completed before 
a.d. 84, when Julius Agricola, who had been first ap- 
pointed to the supreme command there in a.d. 78, in 

* No. 193 (for March-June, 1691), vol. x\n. p. 495. 



10 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOBY OF 

the reign of Vespasian, resigned and returned to Rome 
in tliat of Domitian, after having in seven campaigns 
overrun the country to a considerable distance beyond 
the Forth, and also sailed round the island and reduced 
the Orkneys. 

The passages in the ancient Greek and Latin writers 
relating to the connexion of the Romans with Britain 
have been collected by Camden and others ; but most 
carefully and fully in the magnificent volume entitled 
" Monumenta Historica Britannica ; or, Materials for the 
History of Britain, published by command of Her Ma- 
jesty," (folio : London, 1848.) They fill 120 pages of 
that work. 

The Roman dominion ceased to be acknowledged by 
the Britons in a.d. 409, in the reign of the Emperor 
Honorius ; and in a.d. 418, according to the Saxon 
Chronicle, " the Romans collected all the treasures that 
were in Britain, and some they hid in the earth, so that 
no one has since been able to find them ; and some 
they carried with them into Gaul." The account given 
by the Saxon historian Ethelwerd (writing in Latin in 
the tenth century) is, that in this year those of the 
Roman race who were left in Britain, not being able to 
endure the multiplied menaces of the natives, buried 
their treasure in holes dug in the earth (scrobibus), 
imagining that they might have an opportunity of re- 
covering it afterwards, a thing which never happened ; 
and, taking only a part of it with them, assembled 
at or on the water (in undo), set sail, and retired to 
Gaul. The earlier narrative of Gildas, which is of the 
sixth centur}% but is extremely confused and obscure, 
contains nothing to this effect, but speaks of Ambrosius 
Aurelianus, whom Beda and other writers place at the 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 1 1 

bead of the Britons in the latter pait of the fifth cen- 
tiiiy, as the only indi\idual of Eoman extraction ^Yho 
was then left alive in the island.-:- 

It is in the highest degree improbable that the re- 
tii'ement or expulsion of the inhabitants of Pioman de- 
scent can have been so complete as these statements 
would make it. From the number of settlements which 
both histoiy and their remains on or under the soil 
prove the Eomans to have possessed in all parts of the 
countiy, from the Channel to the Friths of Forth and 
Clyde, comprehending many to\vns and villas, as well as 
mere militaiy stations, it is evident that in the space of 
between three and four centmies, during which the 
island had been a Roman province, it had been exten- 
sively colonised, like most of the other provinces, from 
the original central seat of the empire, and that the 

* According to all the old accounts it was not till a good many 
years after 418 that the Britons saw the last of their Roman 
masters. Gildas (10, 11) and Nennius (23) hoth state tliat 
when the Eoman commander Maximus revolted against the 
Emperor Gratian, he carried over mth him to the continent all 
the mihtary force then in Britain, and that these soldiers never 
retmned, but settled in Ai-moiica (Bretagne). This was in a.d. 
383. But we know that in the year 407 the Eoman army in 
Britaui was powerful enough to set up in succession three pre- 
tenders to the empii'e, ^Marcus, Gratian, and Constantino. After- 
wards Nennius (27) speaks of the Eoman generals (duces 
Eomanorum) having been on three several occasions {tribus 
vicibus) put to death by the Britons. Yet, after this transaction, 
it is added, the latter sought the help of the Eomans against the 
Picts and Scots, and, having sworn submission, had an army 
sent to them. Gildas (12, 14), and Beda, who follows and 
amplifies his account {Hist. i. 12, 13), make three successive 
embassies to have been sent to Eome, the first and second of 
which were each successful in obtaining temporary assistance ; 



12 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOEY OF 

portion of its population tlius formed must in all likeli- 
hood haYe been very considerable and very widely diffused. 
But, although it cannot be doubted that an extended 
Latin ci^dlisation grew up in Britain in the course of 
the long space of time that it continued under the 
Roman dominion, we are not informed by any express 
notices in the ancient writers in how far Latin became 
the language of the country. Tacitus, however, affirms 
[Agric. 21), that already by a.d. 79, when Agricola had 
made his second campaign, the sons of the chiefs, under 
his judicious measures, were beginning to be attracted 
to liberal studies, and to be becoming ambitious of ex- 
celling in the eloquent use of the Roman tongue, which 
they had heretofore despised. And 'Juvenal about the 
same early date speaks (Sat. xv. 3) of the art of ora- 
torical pleading being taught to the Britons by their 
eloquent neighbours the Gauls, and of the feeing of 

but the third, addressed to the Consul Aetius, proved ineffectual. 
From what Beda says here, and with more precision in his tract 
De Sex JEtatihus ScbcuU, the first and second of these embas- 
sies would appear to have been despatched between a.d. 414 
and 419, the third in 446. But the Chronological Abstract in 
the Momimenta Historica Britamiica makes the date of the first 
embassy to have been probably a.d. 396, and that of the second 
A.D. 435 ; placing the first arrival of the Saxons under Hengst 
and Hors in the interval between these dates, namely, a.d. 428. 
The learned compiler of the Abstract is guilty of a slight oversight 
in saying (142, note), that "the first and second embassies are 
severally assigned by Dr. Smith to the years 414 and 416, or 419." 
Consult upon the succession of the events to which this note 
relates Lappenberg's England under the Anglo-Saxon Kings, 
translated by Thorpe (2 vols. 8vo. London, 1845), i. 6-73. And 
upon the general subject of the Eomans in Britain, see an 
interesting article in the Edinburgh Review, No. 191 (for July 
1851), pp. 177-204. 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 13 

counsel being now practised even in Tliule. Agricola, 
Tacitus tells us, preferred tlie natural genius of the 
Britons to the studied acquirements of the Gauls. 

From the name of the Saxon Shore (Littus Saxon- 
icuvi) having been borne in the Roman time bj a por- 
tion of the eastern and south-eastern coast of Britain 
(from Branodunum, now Brancaster, in Norfolk, to the 
Portus AduiTii, probably either Pevensey or Aldrington, 
in Sussex), it has been recently argued that the Saxons 
must have akeady established themselves in some por- 
tion of this district. But the only Saxon settlement 
that could have given rise to the name would have been 
a settlement over the whole line of coast so denomi- 
nated ; and it is impossible that that could have passed 
unrecorded. There seems to be no reasonable objection 
to the commonly received interpretation of the name, as 
meaning simply the coast along which the Saxon pirates 
were wont to make their descents. 

Many small bodies of barbarians, however, were trans- 
ferred to and located in Britain by the Romans them- 
selves. Upwards of forty barbarian legions, it has been 
stated, composed some of natives of Germany, some of 
Moors, Dalmatians, and Thracians, after having served 
their time in the armies of the empire, were settled and 
put in possession of lands in various parts of the island, 
principally upon the northern and eastern coasts, and 
in the neighbourhood of the Roman walls (Pal grave's 
History of the Anglo-Saxons, 1838, p. 20). But these 
small bodies must have soon melted into the smTounding 
population, and can neither have preserved their own 
dialects nor produced any distinguishable effect upon 
the general language of the comitry. 



14 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 



IV. The Third and the main fact is, that, after the ex- 
tinction of the Roman dominion, the country was 
in great part conquered, taken possession of, and 
occupied by certain tribes of Gothic race and 
language, whose descendants have ever since 
formed the bulk of its population. 

The commonly received account rests principally 
upon the authority of the Historia Ecclesiastica of Beda, 
who was born at Jarrow, in the bishopric of Durham, 
A.D. 673, and died a.d. 735. Beda makes the invaders, 
to whom he gives the general name of Saxons or Angles, 
to have consisted of three nations or tribes, properly 
distinguished as the Saxons, the Angles, and the Jutes 
(or rather the VitcE, which is the reading of all the MSS.) 

The Saxons, he says, came from that region in Ger- 
many which was in his own day known by the name of 
the country of the Old Saxons ; that is, the modern 
Duchy of Holstein, or the country between the Elbe 
and the Eider. The Angles he brings from a district 
immediately to the north of that occupied by the Saxons ; 
from his account, combined with others, the native 
country of the Angles is supposed to have been the part 
of the Duchy of Sleswig, still bearing the name of Angel 
or Angeln, lying between the Eider and the arm of the 
Baltic called, after the town at its extremity, the Flens- 
borg Wyck, or Fiorde. Beda says this district was 
reported to have remained uninhabited (desertus) ever 
since the invasion. The original country of the Jutes 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 15 

he places immediately to the north of that of the Angles, 
that is to say, ip the upper part of the present Sleswig, 
othei'wise called &outh Jutland. 

The accounts that we have from Beda and others, of 
the dates at which these several invading tribes arrived, 
and even of the order in which they followed each other, 
are confused and contradictory. It has commonly been 
held that the Jutes came first, under the brothers 
Hengst and Hors, or Hengist and Horsa, in a.d. 449 ; 
next the first division of the Saxons, under Ella, in 
477, and the second, under Cerdic, in 495 ; then the 
first body of the Angles in 527, but their principal host, 
under the command of Ida, not till 547. Mr. Hardy, 
however, the learned editor of the Monumenta His- 
torica Britannica (Chronological Abstract, 143), prefers 
the computation in the Historia Britonum of Nennius 
(a writer of the ninth century), according to which 
the arrival of Hengist and Horsa and their band would 
be in a.d. 428. This is a point of little or no import- 
ance for our present purpose. But, supposing the three 
tribes to have spoken, as they probably did (at least the 
Saxons and the Angles), different dialects, it becomes 
very important, in tracing the origin and history of the 
common language which grew up among them, to under- 
stand in what parts of the country they severally settled. 
The accepted account of this matter, derived from Beda 
and other sources, is, that the Jutes occupied Kent and 
the Isle of Wight, with part of the opposite coast of 
Hampshire ; that the Saxons established themselves in 
all the rest of the country to the south of the Thames 
and of the Bristol Avon, and also in Essex and Mid- 
dlesex, and the southern part of Hertford ; and that the 
Angles took possession of all the rest of England, which 



16 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 

also received its name (originally Aengla-land, or Engla- 
land) from them. The dominion of the Angles appears 
to have extended as far north as to the Forth and the 
Clyde ; but the various bodies of the old Celtic popula- 
tion maintained their independence, in the kingdoms or 
principalities of Strath-Clyde, Cumbria, North and South 
Wales, and Cornwall, along the whole line of the western 
coast. 

There is little doubt that among the invaders there 
must have been a considerable proportion of Frisians, 
either from the Greater Friesland (Frisia Major), for- 
merly extending from the Schelde to the Weser, or 
from the Lesser Friesland (Frisia Minor), lying on the 
western coast of Sleswig, opposite to the Isle of North- 
Strand, whence these northern Frieslanders were called 
Strandfrisii. Beda himself, in another place {Hist. 
Eccles. V. 9), enumerates the Fresones among the 
nations from whom the Angles or Saxons inhabiting 
Britain are knowTi to have derived their origin. Sir 
Francis Palgrave goes the length of saying [Hist. 
Anglo-Sax., 33, 34), that "the tribes by whom Britain 
w^as invaded appear principally to have proceeded from 
the country now called Frieseland ; for, of all the con- 
tinental dialects, the ancient Frisick is the one which 
approaches most nearly to the Anglo-Saxon of our an- 
cestors." — (See also his "Rise and Progress of the 
English Commonwealth," 41, 42.) 

The whole account preserved by Beda of the invasion 
of Britain by the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes has been ^ 
treated as of scarcely any historical value by Mr. Kemble ^ 
in his late w^ork, entitled "The Saxons in England,'*! j 
(See vol. i. pp. 1-34). But, whatever force may be 



I THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 17 

j 

■j allowed to the reasoning by ^yhicll Mr. Kemble would 
' establish, on the one hand, the mixture of poetical or 
iabulous elements in the narrative, and, on the other, its 
lauthorised character for the greater part, it seems 
. very unlikely that it can be wdioUy without foundation 
I in so far as respects the only portion of it with which we 
ij are here concerned, namely, that comprising the descent 
j of the invaders from a diversity of tribes, the locations 
of the different tribes in the conquered country, and also 
the districts on the Continent whence they had severally 
come. The distinction of race between the Saxons and 
Angles, indeed, is sufficiently attested by the existence 
of those two general appellations, to say nothing of 
those of such particular states or districts as Essex, 
Sussex, Wessex, East Anglia, &c. In discriminating 
the Saxon and Anglian populations, Beda was dealing 
with facts lying under his eye, and as to w^hich he could 
hardly be mistaken, more especially if, as is nearly cer- 
tain, the original difference of descent was still marked 
by a dialectic difference of speech. And, perhaps, this 
may not have been the only difference that divided, and 
always had divided, the iVnglian and Saxon states. Nor 
would two distinct and possibly rival populations, set 
down beside one another in a new comitr}", readily lose 
the memory of their original seats. Indeed, it hardly 
can be seriously made matter of dispute that the Angles 
and Saxons of Britain were offshoots from the Aiigli and 
Saxones of the Continent : the Angli, w^ho are first men- 
tioned by Tacitus in the first century ; the Saxones, who 
are first mentioned (at least under that name), in the 
second century by Ptolemy. 

With regard to the Jutes, how^ever, the case is not so 
clear. In the third edition of his w^ork on the English 

c 



18 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 

Language (London, ]851), Dr. Latham (pp. 10-12), has 
endeavoured to show that, although Jutland in Denmark 
undoubtedly took its name from a people called the 
Jutes, the derivation of any part of the invaders of 
Britain, after the fall of the Roman Empire, from that 
people, is a mistake arising from Beda, or, it may be,' 
some preceding writer whom he copied, having con- 
founded the Celtic element Wilit in Wiht-saetan (the 
Wight-people or inhabitants of tlfe Isle of Wight) with 
the similar element in Vit-land, or With-land, which are 
other forms of the name of the peninsula commonly 
called Jutland. 

It has been usual, also, with modern writers to 
assume that the continental region from which the 
Saxon portion of the invaders of Britain was derived 
was not confined to Beda's Old Saxony, or the district 
now called Holstein, but probably extended as far west- 
ward along the coast of the North Sea as to the Weser 
or even to the Rhine. 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 19 



V. The Fourth fact is, that in the latter part of the 
ninth century, extensive settlements were ef- 
fected in the North-eastern parts of England by 
a Scandinavian people, the Northmen or Danes. 

Whatever maybe the origin or etymological meaning 
of the term Danes, it had come by the eighth centmy to 
be the common name for those bands of piratical rovers, 
from the countries around the Baltic, who were other- 
wise called Northmen or Normans. They are held to 
have been drawn from every part of the extensive region 
which the ancients designated Scandinavia ; but it is 
remarkable that, whereas that appellation is understood in 
its strictest sense to include only the modern Sweden and 
Norway, it is to Denmark that the Danes have left their 
name. The geographical position of Denmark, divided 
from the proper Scandinavian countries by so consider- 
able an extent of sea, will hardly allow us to interpret 
the name as signifying the Border land of the Danes, 
taking mark here to be the same element which we have 
in the names of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia 
(bordering on Wales), the old French county of La 
Mar die (bordering on Limousin), and the Mark of the 
Germans, and the Marca of the Italians, in various 
instances. 

It is further worth noticing that the modem kingdom 
of Denmark comprehends all the districts from which 
issued, according to the old accounts, the several tribes 
who invaded Britain upon the fall of the Roman empire. 
And the Danes proper (who may be considered to repre- 



20 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOEY OF 

sent the Jutes) ; the Angles, who live between the Bight 
of Flensborg and the river Schley on the Baltic ; the 
Prisons, who inhabit the islands along the west coast of 
Jutland, with a part of the bailiwick of Husum in 
Sleswig ; and the Germans of Holstein (Be da's Old 
Saxons), are still all recognised by geographers and 
ethnographers as distinct races (See Universal GeograjjJiy 
of Malte-Brun and Balbi, English translation, p. 478). 

The Latin chroniclers, from some strange misconcep- 
tion, often speak of the Danes of the eighth and suc- 
ceeding centuries under the name of Daci, or Dacians. 

The earliest notice of the appearance of the Danes 
in England occurs in the Saxon Chronicle under the 
year 787. The passage is as follows : — " Her nom 
Beorhtric cyning Offan dohtor Eadburhge to wiue. And 
on his dagum cuomon aerest 3 scipu Northmanna of 
Haeretha lande.-'''^ And tha se gerefa thaerto rad, and 
hie wolde drifan to thaes cyninges tune, thy be nyste 
hwaet hie w^aeron ; and hiene mon thaer ofslog. Thaet 
w^aeron tha aerestan scipu Deniscra monna the Eangel- 
cynnes lond gesohton." That is: — "This year took 
King Beorhtric [of AVessex] King Offa's daughter Ead- 
burhge to wife. And in his days came first three ships 
of Northmen from Haeretha land. And then the reeve 
thereto rode ; and them would have driven to the king's 
town, because he wist not what they were ; and him they 
there slew. These were the first ships of Danisli men 
that sought the land of the English race." 

* This name, I beheve, does not elsewhere occur. Perhaps it 
may be a mistake for Haethcna lande (the land of the heathen). 
A common name for the Danes, with the Latin chroniclers, is 
Gentiles, or Pagani. 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 21 

In 867 the Danes made themselves masters of all the 
eastern part of the kingdom of North umhria, compris- 
ing the modern counties of Northumberland, Durham, 
and York, besides those of Cumberland, Westmoreland, 
and Lancashire, along the western coast. This conquest 
was speedily followed by the acquisition of many of the 
principal towns in Mercia (or the Midland Counties) ; 
which, along with East Angiia and the former kingdoms 
of Kent and Sussex, had for some time acknowledged 
the sovereignty of the King of Wessex, now beginning 
to be looked up to, in virtue of this extended dominion, 
as the supreme niler of England. East Angiia (compris- 
ing Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridge) was next attacked ; 
then Wessex itself ; and at last, in the year 878, King Al- 
fred was glad to conclude the war by a treaty with Godrum, 
or Guthrun, the Danish king or chief, by which he con- 
sented to cede to the invaders all the country lying along 
the eastern coast from the Humber to the Thames. 
Here accordingly, and in their conquered kingdom of 
Northumbria, farther to the north, these foreigners 
settled, probably in considerable numbers, and, although 
acknowledging themselves the subjects of the English 
king, were governed by their own laws; so that this 
part of the kingdom came from henceforth to be known 
by the name of the Danelagh, or Dane law. 

Finally, in 1013 the conquest of all England was 
effected by the Danish king Sweyne ; and the crown 
continued in the possession of his descendants till 104^2. 
Dming all this space, however, it is to be observed, the 
laws continued to be promulgated for the English in 
their own tongue. Nor is there any reason for suppos- 
ing that the Danes ever extended their occupation of 
the country beyond the limits of the territory made over 
or abandoned to them in the reign of Alfred. 



^2 



OUTLINES OF THE HISTOEY OF 



VI. The Fifth fact, and the one next in importance 
to the Third, is, that in the middle of the 
eleventh century England was conquered by the 
Normans, who were originally Danes, but had 
been settled in France for about a century and 
a half, and had by this time exchanged their 
ancestral Scandinavian tongue for the Neo-Latin 
tongue called French. 

A BODY of Danes, or Northmen, under their leader 
Hrolf, or Piollo, surnamed the Ganger (whatever may 
have been intended to be expressed by that epithet), 
after an unsuccessful attempt to make good a footing 
in England, had, a few years before Guthrun and his 
followers obtained their cession of territory from King 
Alfred, turned to the opposite coast of France, and 
effected their jBrst descent in the province of that king- 
dom which at last, in 912, was yielded up to them by 
King Charles the Third, styled the Simple, and there- 
upon received the name of Normandy, which it retains 
to this day. 

The cession of Normandy to Eollo by Charles the 
Simple would seem to have been a transaction very 
much of the same kind with the cession of the Dane- 
lagh to Godrum by Alfred the Great. But, while the 
Northmen of England, after the death of Godrum, 
appear to have been left without a head of their o\^^l 
race, those of France preserved at least the form of a 
distinct nationality under the descendants of Rollo, who 
continued to rule over the territory which their ancestor 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 23 

had acquired as all but independent sovereigns, with the 
title of Dukes of Normandy. 

It is probable, nevertheless, that the intermixture of the 
French Northmen with the previous population of their 
new country may have been fully as gi'eat as in the case 
of the Danes settled m England. We know that both 
alike, after a few generations, dropped the use of the 
language of their ancestors, and adopted that of the 
nation in the midst of which they had set themselves 
down. This was a much greater change for the Nor- 
mans of France than for the English Danes ; for the 
Norse and Anglo-Saxon were tongues of the same 
Gothic stock, whatever may have been their dialectic, 
or little more than dialectic, differences ; whereas the 
French was a tongue, as will be presently explained, of 
quite another descent. 

The comparatively near relationship between the lan- 
guages of the English and the Danes must have facili- 
tated and hastened that amalgamation of the two races, 
or absoi'ption of the one into the other, which appears to 
have been completed before the next political revolution 
that the coimtiy undei^ent. 

This was its conquest by the French Normans in the 
year 1066, under their Duke William the Second, who 
thereupon took the title of William the Fkst of England, 
and the designation of the Conqueror. He was the 
seventh Duke of Normandy, and the fifth in descent 
from Ptollo. With the Nonnan king and comt, and a 
numerous following of nobility, landowners, and soldiers, 
established in England by this revolution, was imported 
and extensively introduced into use the language spoken 
by the Nonnans, which, as has been just stated, was by 
this time French. 



24 



OUTLINES OF THE HISTOEY OF 



The French is one of what are called the Romance or 
Neo-Latin tongues, by which terms are meant those 
corrupted forms of Latin that, in Italy and other 
countries, especially France and Spain, which had long 
been Roman provinces, superseded the old classical 
Latin after the fall of the Western Empire, first as the 
spoken and ultimately also as the literary languages. 
The names, however, of France and French have been 
given to the country formerly called Gaul, and to its 
general population and this their Neo-Latin speech, 
from its having been conquered in the latter part of the 
fifth century by a German people (or rather confederacy 
of various tribes), called the Franks, who spoke, of 
course, a Germanic or Teutonic, that is a Gothic, lan- 
guage. The proper language of the Franks is distin- 
guished in modern philology from the French by being 
termed the Francic. 

There were formerly two great dialects of the French 
language : that spoken to the south of the Loire, called 
the Langiie d'Oc (or sometimes by modem philologists 
the Occitanian); and that spoken to the north of the 
Loire called the Langite d'Oyl. Oc and Oijl (now 
vocalised into Oui) were the words expressive of assent, 
or answering to our Yes, in the two dialects. The 
French brought over to England by the Normans was a 
form of the Langue d 'Oijl ; and it is out of that dialect 
chiefly that the present standard French has grown. 
Its great literary cultivators were the poets known as 
the Troiiveres (from trouver, to find or invent). The 
poets, again, of the south of France were denominated 
Troubadours, which is merely the form of the same w^ord 
proper to the southern dialect, often called the Provencal 
tongue, from the poets who composed in it in the age 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 25 

of its glor}^ (the twelfth century) having been mostly 
patronised at the court of the Counts of Provence (first 
at Aries in that province, afterwards at Toulouse in 
Langiiedoc). It still subsists as a living tongue, though 
in ruins, and degraded to the condition of a jmtois, or 
merely rustic and unwritten dialect. 

Although it was the Xorthern French that was 
brought over at the Norman Conquest, the Provencal 
language and literature also must have been made 
familiar in England after another century by the 
accession to the crown (in 1154) of Heniy Plantagenet 
as Henry II., whose maniage with Eleanor of Poitou 
had made him master of Poitou and Guienne in the 
south-west of France, in addition to Normandy and his 
paternal domains of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine. 
Several Provencal compositions are attributed to his 
son and successor, Pdchard the First. 



26 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOEY OF 



VII. It would thus appear that the languages which 
have been imported into and established in Eng- 
land by the successive populations that have 
conquered or settled in it, and which may each, 
therefore, have in a greater or less degree con- 
tributed to the formation of its existing language, 
belong to three several branches of the Indo- 
European Family; the Celtic, the Gothic, and the 
Classical. 

The Indo-European family of languages may be con- 
veniently considered as distributed into the following 
branches : — 

1. The Sanscrit, or Iranian (from Iran, the native 

name of Persia), including all the Asiatic tongues 
which appear to be derived from the Sanscrit, or 
from the Zend (the language of the ancient Per- 
sians, or, rather, of the Modes). 

2. The Celtic. 

3. The Classical (comprising the Greek and the 

Latin). 

4. The Gothic. 

5. The Slavonic, or Sarmatian (under which may be 

included, not only the languages of the Russians, 
Poles, Bohemians, and the other proper Slaves, 
but also the Old Prussian, and the dialects of 
Lithuania and Courland, which are known by 
the names of the Lettonian or Lettish, and the 
Curonian or Livonian). 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 27 

j The term Indo-European has been substituted for 
I Indo-Gennanic since it has come to be generally ad- 
' mitted that the Celtic languages belong to this family.-- 
We have nothing to do in the present investigation 
I with either the Iranian or the Sarmatian branch. 

* This is hai'dly yet universally admitted. In a paper read 
|l before the Ethnological Society in 1849, and aftei-wards puh- 
I lislied in the Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine, Dr. Latham 
jj stated certain reasons which induced him to consider the claims 
t- of the Celtic languages to he included in the Indo-European 
I family as somewhat questionable ; and in the thii'd edition of 

his work on the English Language, published in 1850, he so far 
j adheres to that ^T*ew, as, while he admits " an affinity between 

the Celtic and the other so-called Indo-European tongues," to 

deny that it is " the same affinity which connects the Iranian, 

Classical, Gothic, and Slavonic groups." 



28 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 



VIII. But the facts constituting the External or His- 
torical Evidence that we have regarding the 
sources of the language leave us nearly alto- 
gether uninformed as to the proportionate amount 
of each of its several probable ingredients, and 
as to the precise results that have been produced 
by their intermixture. This we 'can only learn 
from the Internal Evidence, or that afforded by 
the language itself. 

Whenever two or more populations, speaking different 
languages, are placed alongside of one another, under 
the same government, there arises a tendency, which, 
sooner or later, will, to a greater or less extent, become 
operative, towards the establishment of uniformity of 
speech. No such tendency arises in the case of con- 
tiguous populations living under different governments. 
The result of such a competition of any two languages 
will depend partly upon the genius and circumstances 
of the languages, partly upon those of the populations 
speaking them. This is, probably, all the length that we 
can safely go in stating the general law. The languages 
will be distinguished from each other in respect of their 
comparative states of advancement and cultivation, the 
facility with which they may be acquired (which, again, 
may vary with the acqukers), the degree of tenacity and 
affection with which they are clung to (depending, it may 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. ^9 

be, Upon tlieir iiilierent qualities, it may be upon merely 
their history and fortunes, or those of the races by whom 
they are spoken), and the attractions which they hold 
out, either by theii' natural beauty and capabilities, their 
expressiveness, their convenience or impoitance poli- 
tically, commercially, or for general purposes, and the 
amount and value of their literary stores. The popula- 
tions speaking them will be distinguished by theii' com- 
parative numbers, by the political relation in which they 
stand to each other, by their respective social conditions. 
and even by the disposition of each, on the one hand to 
adopt new customs, or on the other to impose its own 
laws and usages upon its neighbours. The result, there- 
fore, it is manifest, may be infinitely modified, both in 
itself and in the manner in which it is brought about. 

The following cases, among others, may be con- 
sidered : — 

The retention of then' proper language by the Greeks 
throughout all the vicissitudes of then* history. 

The establishment of the Latin language in Gaul and 
several other countries after their conquest by the 
Romans. 

The imposition of their own language by the Turks in 
those portions of their empire that were earliest wrested 
from the Chiistians, 

The substitution of the Arabic for the old languages 
in Egypt and the other Mahometan countries along the 
northern coast of Africa. 

The substitution, after the overthrow of the Roman 
empire, in some of its provinces of a Gothic, in others 
of a semi-Gothic speech, in place of the Latin. 

The abandonment of thek ancestral languao'es by the 



30 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOEY OF 

Franks, after their conquest of Gaul ; by the Normans, 
after their settlement in England ; and by the Manchoos, 
after their conquest of China. 

The retention of their ancestral language by the 
Saxons, after their conquest of Britain. 

See, also, the remarks of Dr. Charles Pickering, in 
the fifteenth chapter {The Relation between the Races) 
of his work entitled, "The Races of Man," and the 
instances there brought forward, principally from the 
languages of Asia and Africa. 

When one of two competing languages completely 
gives way and disappears before the other, that result is 
always preceded by both languages having been generally 
spoken for a considerable period by the population that 
is destined to relinquish its ancestral speech, and by at 
least Qiie generation of that population having grown up 
in the knowledge and use of both languages from child- 
hood. It is only a language which it has itself acquired 
in childhood that one generation will ever transmit to 
another. 

But in some cases, when two languages come into 
competition, the one does not retire and altogether dis- 
appear before the other, but a combination takes place 
between them ; or, if one of them acquires the ascendancy, 
it is still more or less modified by the other. 

It is probable that some languages are naturally more 
impressible by a foreign element or influence than others. 
And the same language vdW vary in its impressibility at 
different stages of its growth, or according to the temper 
or circumstances of the population speaking it. It will 
also be more apt to be affected by the contact of one 
foreign language than of another. 



A I 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 31 

Most commonly the effect produced by one language 
upon another is confined to the vocabulary. It is veiy 
rarely, if ever, that two distinct grammatical structures 
become intermixed ; although sometimes, perhaps, a 
language may suffer some derangement of its grammar 
from comincy into collision with another languaoje. 



32 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 



IX. The number of words which the EngUsh language 
appears to have derived from the Celtic, of the 
original Britons, or their descendants the Welsh, 
is considerable ; but they are scattered and un- 
connected, and do not constitute a distinguishable 
department of its vocabulary. No stream of 
v^rords has flowed into it from that quarter. 
There has been no chemical combination of the 
two languages; only a mechanical intermixture 
to a certain extent. 

The ablest investigation that the question of the 
amount of Celtic in English has received is contained 
in a paper read before the Philological Society in 1844 
by the late Rev. Eichard Garnett, and published in the 
Society's Proceedings, vol. i. p. 169. 

Mr. Garnett enumerates about two hundred English 
words (some of them, however, only provincial), which 
he conceives to have been borrowed from the Welsh, 
and he affirms that twenty times as many might be 
produced. Among those which he instances are the 
following : funnel, from ffynel, literally, an air-hole ; 
garter, from gar tas, a shank tie ; kick, from cic, the 
foot; cuts, in the expression "to draw cuts," from cwtws, 
a lot ; to iced, from gweddu, to yoke ; bride, from priaivd, 
meaning one won and possessed. 

The word leather Mr. Garnett gives as an instance of 

a term which is found in many Teutonic (or Gothic) as 

well as in all the Celtic dialects, but which there are, 

levertheless, reasons for believing to be originally Celtic, 



ii 



J 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 33 

in which class of languages alone its proper or primaiy 
meaning is to be detected. The Celtic term, lied in 
Welsh, and leatlian in Gaelic, signifies yZa^ or broad. 

Another of Mr. Gamett's instances is the word 
mutton. This word we have, no doubt, received iDime- 
diately from the French mouton, anciently moidton; 
and its termination is probably the common augmenta- 
tive one of the modern Italian, in which language it 
assumes the form of montone ; but its emphatic por- 
tion, mut, mout, or moidt, is found in the Welsh mollt, 
the Gaelic mult, and the Armoric maut. In his 
"Thoughts on the Origin and Descent of the Gael," 
8vo., Lond. 1827, Mr. Grant, of Conimony, has shown 
that this Celtic term is identical with the Latin multa, 
or mulcta, used for a pecuniaiy penalty or fine, which we 
have Anglicised into mulct. The penalty desig*nated 
viulta was understood by the Romans to be in some way 
or other, though nobody could tell how, connected not 
only ^vith a sheep, but specially with a male sheep, or, 
rather, with a vervex, or wether ; and it is remarkable 
that this last is also the kind of sheep which the Celtic 
terms signify. Mouton, or moulton, it may be added, 
was in old French used only for a wether, as montone 
still is in Italian for a male sheep, or ram. 

Some existing English words are recorded or known 
to have been originally Celtic. One instance is the 
word baskety which is spoken of as having been a British 
word both by Juvenal [Sat. xii. 46) and Maitial (Epig. 
xiv. 99). Its Welsh form is bassgawd, apparently from 
base or basg, an intei^weaving or netting. But it may 
still, perhaps, be questioned whether it was introduced 
into the English or Saxon directly from the Welsh, or 
through the medium of the Latin. 

D 



34 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOKY OF 






It is argued by Mr. Garnett that tlie borrowing by 
the Saxons from the Britons of such words as this, sig- 
nificant of articles or of arts and processes with which 
they had been previously unacquainted, is a thing in 
itself likely to have happened. In other cases, he thinks, 
the new-comers may have been led to adopt a Celtic 
word now and then from its mere oddity. In illustration 
of this he quotes the word bother, which is commonly 
stated to be only another form of pother, no further 
account being given of either, but which Mr. Garnett 
states to be a Celtic term often occurring in the Irish 
translation of the Scriptures in the sense of "to be 
grieved or troubled in mind." 

It is to be remembered, in the consideration of this 
question, that, different and almost hostile in genius as 
the Celtic and Gothic tongues are, they are still both 
branches of the same Indo-European family, and that 
they must have radically much in common. In the 
Latin language, too, from which the English has derived 
so large a portion of its vocabulary in later stages, there 
are both a Celtic and a Gothic element. 

A late French writer. Mens. W. F. Edwards, in a work 
entitled " Eecherches sur les Langues Celtiques," 8vo. 
Paris, 1844, has (pp. 11-13) attempted to show that 
certain pecidiarities of English pronunciation (which, 
however, are hardly so distinctly described as were 
desirable) are to be attributed to the contact and action 
of the Welsh language. 

The two principal subsisting Celtic languages are the 
Welsh and the Irish : the Cornish and the Breton, or 
Armorican, being subordinate varieties of the former; the 
Scottish Gaelic and the Manks (or dialect of the Isle of 
Man), of the latter. 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 35 



X. There are scarcely to be found any words in the 
English language which it can be supposed to 
have inherited from the Latin spoken by the 
Roman colonists who had preceded the Anglo- 
Saxons in the dominion, and, to a great extent, 
in the occupation of the country. Almost the 
only words of Latin origin that had estabhshed 
themselves in the language before the Norman 
Conquest are a few which it had received from 
the Roman ecclesiastics, v/hose visits commenced 
at the close of the sixth century, or from books. 

Such Latin ingredient as the English language may 
contain, derived from the speech of a portion of the 
population when the country was a province of the 
Eoman empire, has been designated the Latin of the 
First Period. But it can hardly be said to exist. The 
only fragments or vestiges of it that have been instanced 
are the caster, cester, Chester, and whatever other varia- 
tions there may be of the Latin castra (a camp) pre- 
sen'-ed in such names of places as Lancaster, Manchester, 
Leicester, &c. ; the coin of Lincoln, and a few other 
towns, which is supposed to be an abridgement or cor- 
ruption of colonia (a colony) ; and the word street, from 
stratum or strata. But this last is probably as much a 
Gothic as a Latin word. 

What of the Latin language of Britain survived the 
imperial dominion would appear to have been preserved 



36 



OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 



only in the Celtic of Wales. But it is still an unsettled 
question how much of Latin there is in the Welsh. 

The total, or all but total, absence of Latin in the 
Anglo-Saxon (with the exception only of the theological 
and learned words for which it was indebted to the 
Eoman ecclesiastics) is a remarkable fact, and one of 
great importance ; but rather in reference to the history 
of the country than to that of the language. It is some- 
what strange that few or none even of the words which 
the Gothic conquerors of Britain are supposed to have 
adopted from the Welsh language appear to be of Latin 
original. 

The Latin ingredient introduced into the English 
language by the Roman churchmen, and by the learning 
which they imported, has been distinguished as the 
Latin of the Second Period. Attention was first directed 
to this part of the language by Mr. Guest, who, in his 
*' History of English Rhythms," (2 vols. 8vo. Lond. 1838, 
vol. ii. pp. 108, 109,) has instanced the following Latin 
words, among others, as found in Anglo-Saxon manu- 
scripts of a yerj early date: — My nster [from monasterium), 
a minster or monastery ; portic (from porticus), a porch ; 
cluster (from claustrum), a cloister ; munuc (from mona- 
chus), a monk ; bisceop (from episcopus), a bishop ; sanct 
(from sanctus), a saint ; calic (from calix), a chalice ; 
yrcedician (from prcedicare), to preach ; leon (from leo), 
the lion ; peter selige (from petroselinum), parsley ; pi2:)or 
(from piper), pepper ; &c. 

Mr. Guest observes that the Latin terms introduced 
into the English at this stage of the language are nearly 
all concrete terms (or significant of things), whereas those 
introduced at a later date are mostly abstract (or signifi- 
cant of notions). 



THE EXGLTSH LANGUAGE. 37 

It may be added, that in most of the instances men- 
tioned above the modem EngHsh word is not a modifi- 
cation of the Saxon formation, but a new formation 
obtained either dii'ectly from the Latin or through the 
medium of the French. This is evidently the case with 
monastey-y, porch (Fr. iwrche), cloister (old Fr. cloistre), 
saint (Fr. saint), j^^'^^cJi (Fr. precher), lion (Fr. lion), 
parsley (Fr. persil). 



38 



OUTLINES OF THE HISTOEY OF 



XI. It has not yet been shown that any considerable 
part either of the regular Anglo-Saxon or of the 
standard form of the modern English is, in its 
origin, Scandinavian as distinguished from Teu- 
tonic; though a Scandinavian element appears 
to be more or less recognisable in some of the 
provincial dialects. 

The Gothic branch of the Indo-European family of 
languages may be conveniently distributed into the 
following subdivisions : — 

1. The Mceso-Gothic (the language spoken by the 

Goths, who, in the year 375, were permitted by 
the Emperor Valens to occupy the Lower Moesia, 
now Bulgaria, near the mouth of the Danube 
and on the right bank of that river, having 
previously resided for at least a century on the 
opposite or northern bank, and having been 
recently converted to Christianity by Ulphilas, 
whose translation of part of the New Testament 
is the only specimen of their language that 
remains, being, however, the oldest specimen 
that exists of any Gothic tongue). 

2. The Germanic (the various dialects spoken by the J i 

German nations). 

3. The Scandinavian (the various dialects spoken by 

the nations settled around the Baltic, or in the ! 
countries included by the ancients under the ; 
somewhat vague appellation of Scandinavia, and C 
now known as Norway, Sweden, and Denmark), 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



39 



Of these subdivisions the second, or Germanic, is 
further divided into the High Germanic and the Low 
Germanic (meaning the dialects or languages respec- 
tively of Southern and of Northern Germany, of which 
the foiTner is a comparatively elevated, the latter a low- 
lying region). The piincipal, or what may be called 
the representative, High Germanic language, is what 
is commonly known as the German, and is called by 
the Germans themselves the Hocli Deutsch, which used 
to be Englished High Dutch. The chief exclusively 
Low Germanic tongue is that of Holland, to which 
the term Dutch has now come in this country to be 
restricted, and of which it is significant without any 
distinctive epithet. Ancient Germany, it is to be 
remembered, included the countries now known as 
Holland and the Netherlands. 

The principal existing Scandinavian dialects, again, 
are the Icelandic, the Danish and Norwegian (which are 
nearly the same), the FeiToic, and the Swedish. The 
Icelandic, which is regarded as the standard Scandina- 
vian tongue, is often called the Old Danish, or Norse ; 
and the latter tenn is sometimes used, in a larger 
acceptation, to include all the Scandinavian dialects. 

The substance of the above statement may be thus 
exhibited in a tabular form : — 

Gothic. 



MCESO-GOTHIC. 



High Geeitaxig. 



GeEMAXIC. SCAilDINAVIAN. 

I 

Low Geemaxic. f Icelandic. 

Danish or Nor- 



German, &c. 



Dutch, &c. 



wegian. 
Ferroic. 
Swedish. 



40 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOKY OF 

Of the Gothic invaders and conquerors of Britain in 
the fifth and sixth centuries, the Saxons may be ad- 
mitted without hesitation to have been a Low Germanic 
and not a Scandinavian people. But the Continental 
localities assigned in the received account to the Jutes 
and the Angles would make them both to have been 
Scandinavian, at least according to modern notions. 
The subject, however, is surrounded with obscurity. 
It is questioned, as we have seen, whether there were 
any Jutes among the invaders. Beda's account of the 
quarter whence the Angles came is even disputed. 
They appear to be spoken of both by Tacitus and by 
Ptolemy as a Germanic people. Finally, we do not 
know that the Germanic and the Scandinavian lan- 
guages were so widely distinguished at this date as 
they now are. 

The probability is, however, that there was a dialectic 
difference between the speech of the Saxons and that 
of the. Angles, and also that the latter at least approxi- 
mated more than the former to that of the Danes. The 
two facts from which these inferences may be drawn 
are : — the first, that certain peculiarities of a Scandina- 
vian character are to be found in the Anglian, even of 
a date anterior to the first Danish occupation of a part 
of England in the latter half of the ninth century ; the 
second, that the Scandinavian dialect imported by the 
Danish settlers and the Anglian, although it is unques- 
tionable that they differed considerably, yet, if they were 
not from the first mutually intelligible, appear to have 
coalesced and melted into one language with much more 
facility than they would have done if there had not been 
also a near natural relationship between them. 

The differences between the Anglian and the proper 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 41 

Saxon, as spoken or written in England, and the traces 
of Scandinavianism to be found in the former and in 
the provincial dialects descended from it, have been 
expounded by Mr. Kemble and by Mr. Garnett in several 
papers read before the Philological Society in 1844 and 
1845, and printed in the second volume of the Society's 
Froceedings. 

Although the Gothic conquerors of Britain were 
' collectively called Saxons by the Celts whom they dis- 
possessed (that having been the name by which they 
' had been accustomed to know the persevering enemies 
from the opposite continent by whom their coasts had 
j been so long assailed), they and their language w'ere 
\ commonly called English, that is, Anglian, by them- 
! selves, and the country England, or the land of the 
Angles. This, it is argued, would seem to indicate 
; that the Anglo-Saxon language (that is, the Saxon 
spoken in England) was probably first employed in 
'[ literature, not by the Saxons Proper of the south, but 
• by the Angles of the north. Even the political 
supremacy which was at last acquired by the former 
never was able to obliterate the appellations bestowed 
upon the nation and upon the language by or with 
> reference to the latter, any more than the language 
spoken by the Piomans ever ceased to be called Latin, 
either by themselves or others. 

The head district of the Angles, as distinct from the 
I i Saxons, in Britain was what was called the Kingdom 
j of Northumberland, which in its full extent stretched 
[from the Humber to the Frith of Forth, and included 
i|-the modern counties of Northumberland, Durham, and 
York, with at least the eastern parts of Cumberland, 
Westmoreland, and Lancashire, besides all the south- 



42 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 

east of Scotland. But East Anglia, compreliending 
modem Norfolk and Suffolk, with Cambridgesliire and 
a part of Bedfordshire, was also, as its name implies, an 
Anghan kingdom. Now these parts of the island, which 
had been taken possession of by the Angles in the sixth 
century, were also those that fell under the power of 
the Danish invaders of the ninth century, and in which 
they settled in considerable numbers. The Danelagh, 
as the range of country in question came to be called 
from the time of Godrum's treaty with Alfred the Great 
(in 878), appears to have been nearly co-extensive with 
the kingdoms of East Anglia and Northumbria. The 
remarkable circumstance of the Danes having thus 
seated themselves exclusively in the Anglian districts 
cannot but awaken a suspicion that they found in the 
Angles a race more nearly related to themselves in 
blood and in language than the Saxons were. 

Specimens of the Anglian dialect of Northumbria 
have come down to us, extending certainly from the 
close, possibly from the commencement, of the seventh 
century to the latter part, of the tenth, and therefore 
embracing a considerable period both before and after 
the Danish invasion. Mr. Kemble arranges them in 
three classes : the first, consisting of a few inscriptions 
upon stones, mostly in Runic characters, and " of uncer- 
tain, but probably very great, antiquity;" the second, 
consisting of proper names found upon coins ; the third 
and most important, of literary compositions. Of these 
last the principal are, a translation of the Psalms in one 
of the Cotton Manuscripts, which has. been conjectured 
to be possibly as old as the beginning of the seventh 
century ; a fragment of verse attributed to the poet 
Caedmon, which, if it be genuine, must be of the latteii 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 43 

I half of that century ; a hymn composed on his death- 
' bed by Beda, who died in the year 735 ; and two works 
, which appear to belong to the latter part of the tenth 
! century, the one known as the Durham Ritual, the 
other a hteral interlined translation of the Latin 
' Gospels in what is called St. Cuthberfs or the Durham 
. Book. 

i This succession of specimens of the Anglian dialect, 
f examined in chronological order, appears to afford evi- 
I dence that the dialect, after the Danish occupation, 
; gradually underwent certain changes, which would be 
■ accounted for by the supposition of its haying been sub- 
\ jected to the action of a Scandinavian element or in- 
!i fluence. 

I The most remarkable of these changes is that of the 
proper Saxon termination of the infinitive an into the 
old Norse termination a. The form a, or ce, appears in 
two or three instances in one of the stone inscriptions, 
I that on the Ruthwell Cross, which Mr. Kemble, by 
' whom it was first deciphered and explained a few years 
ago, conjectures to be probably of the ninth century ; but 
in the Durham Ritual, and in St. Cuthhert's Book, which 
are both of the latter part of the tenth centuiy, the new 
infinitive in a is used in all verbs, with the exception 
only of the substantive verb, hian, to be. 

Mr. Gamett further adduces, in support of this theory 
of the gradual Scandinavianisation of the Anglian 
, dialect under the contagion of that of the Danish 
I settlers, the e^ddence afforded by certain specimens of 
the Northumbrian English of the fourteenth century, 
and also various peculiar forms and vocables still re- 
tained in the speech of the northern counties. 

The topographical nomenclature of the country oc- 



44 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOEY OF 

cupied bj tlie Danes is to this day partially Scandi-^ 
navian. It is known historically, indeed, that they 
gave their present names to the towns of Derby and 
Whitby, the terminating syllable of which is the Norse 
form of the word for a town (otherwise icic, or ivich, as 
in many Saxon names, or vie, as in the Latin vic-us), 
and the same which makes part of the compound hye- , 
laws (properly the laws of the town as distinguished- 
from the general laws of the country). 

In the twelfth century Giraldus Cambrensis, and in 
the thirteenth John of Wallingford, speak of both the 
population and the language of the northern parts of ' 
England as still bearing manifest traces of a Danish 
origin. And in the middle of the fourteenth century 
Higden, after having mentioned the mixture of the 
original English, first with the Danes, and then with the 
Normans, adds, that the w^iole speech of the Northum- 
brians, especially in Yorkshire, was so harsh and rude 
that the southern men, of whom he himself was one, 
could hardly understand it. 

It is generally admitted that, whatever may be the 
case with the standard English, several of its provincial 
dialects still exhibit more or less of a Danish or Scan- 
dinavian element. Dr. Latham (English Language, 
third edit. pp. 551, &c.), while he regards the Lowland 
Scotch as being '* probably more Danish than any South 
British dialect," describes the Danish admixture as 
very great in the dialect of Northumberland, as con- 
siderable in the dialects of the North and part of the 
West Riding of Yorkshire, at its minimum in those of 
Shropshire, Staffordshire, and West Derbyshire ; the 
language of Lincolnshire he characterises as only " not 
Danish in proportion to the other signs of Scandinavian 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 45 

intermixture to be found in the district, such as the 
prevalence of the Danish termination by in the names 
of towns, the Danish traditions, and the Danish phy- 
siognomy of the people ; and the language of the old 
metrical romance of " Havelok the Dane," the subject 
of which is a Lincolnshire tradition, he declares to be 
"pre-eminently Danish." 

Mr. Guest, nevertheless [EngUsh PJiythns,' ii. 186- 
207), finds traces of Danish " neither in our MSS. 
nor in our dialects." He admits, indeed, that there 
may possibly be something of the kind in the language 
of certain parts of the British islands which were 
I " wholly peopled with Northmen — as the Orkneys, 
1^ Caithness, and much of the eastern coast north of 
,| Forth ; " but, as for the vestiges of Dano-English com- 
jl monly produced, he observes that " these may be found 
I in districts where the Northman never settled, and are 
r missing from counties where he certainly did ; " and he 
'I argues that the peculiarities wliich have always dis- 
tinguished northern from southern English are to be 
i, sufficiently accounted for by the fact of the Angles 
I having, before they left the continent, been the neigh- 
, hours of the Danes. At the same time he holds that 
' the language brought over by the Danes who settled in 
the country in the ninth century cannot have differed 
very much from English, — that it must have been 
"little more than an English dialect." This is not 
j likely after a separation of more than three centuries, 
even if the two languages had been previously ever so 
nearly related. 

In an article on the " Saxon Language and Litera- 
ture" in the Penny Cyclopedia (published in 1841), 
Mr. Guest refers to the Gloss in St. Cuthberfs Book 



46 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 

and to tlie Durham Ritual as furnislaing the strongest 
of all the arguments against the supposed influence of the I 
language of the Danish settlers, inasmuch, he observes, 
as we have all the peculiarities of the northern dialect 
in every page of the Gloss, and in many parts of the 
Bitual, although both were written before the Danish 
settlement took place. But, as we have seen, so far is . 
this last assumption from being established that the 
Gloss and the Ritual are both assigned by others to the 
latter part of the tenth century. This is the judgment, 
not only of Mr. Garnett and Mr. Kemble, but also, at 
least as to the Ritual, of Dr. Latham [English Lan- ? 
guage, 549). Mr. Guest is mistaken in saying that \ 
the Ritual is assigned by its editor (Mr. Stevenson) to 
the early part of the ninth century ; Mr. Stevenson only 
expresses an opinion that no part of the writing can be 
older than the commencement of that century. The 
Gloss, again, is declared in a memorandum on the MS. 
to have been made for a Bishop Aelfsig, who was pro- 
bably either Aelfsig Bishop of Winchester from a.d. 
951 to 958, or Aelfsig Bishop of Chester-le-street from 
968 to 990. 

To the statement that " the Sexe came from the 
south-western corner of the ancient Ongle, and were 
parted only by the Elbe from the Netherlandish races ; 
while the Engle, who landed at Bamborough, came 
from the north-eastern coast, and were neighbours to 
the Dane" {English Rhythms, ii. 190), it is proper to 
mention that Mr. Guest appends the following note : 
— "There is reason to believe that this word Sexe 
meant nothing more than Seamen, and that it was 
first given to such of the Engle as made piracy their 
trade. But after the Sexe settled in Britain, though, 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 47 

I as it would seem, they sometimes called their speecli 
i\ English, their new country Engle-land, and themselves 
,: the Engle-kin, yet they were, for the most part, dis- 
;| tinguished from the Engle of the north — the phrase 
■ Engle and Sexe being made use of when the writer 
i| would include the entire English population of the 
i^ island. That the Sexe icere a tribe of Engle, I think 
i! there can be little doubt. Everything tends to show, 
!! that at the beginning of the fifth century there were 
. only /our great Gothic races in the north of Em'ope — 
i\ the Sweon, the Dene, the Engle, and the Sivefe.'' The 
' Sweon are the Suiones of Tacitus, supposed to have 
■I given its name to Sweden ; the Sivefe are the Suevi of 
f the ancients, held to be the same with the modem 
Suabians. 



48 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 



XII. The foreign element which is found to have 
mingled to by far the largest extent with the 
Saxon substance of the English language is that ; 
peculiar modification of the Latin which grew up ] 
in the northern part of what was once the Roman 
province of Gaul, and which now forms the clas- 
sical French. 

There was a good deal of intercourse between Eng- 
land and Normandy in tbe reign of the last of the 
Saxon kings, Edward styled tbe Confessor, wbo, when 
be came to tbe throne in tbe year 1042, was nearly 
forty years of age, and bad resided ever since bis boy- 
hood at tbe Norman court ; for tbe Dukes of Normandy 
were bis nearest relations, be and tbe father of William 
tbe Conqueror being cousins-german. He was, there- 
fore, notwithstanding bis birth and descent by tbe 
father's side, much more a Frenchman than a Saxon or 
Englishman ; and it is expressly recorded that be gave 
great offence to bis subjects by tbe preference which be 
showed for tbe language of France as well as by the 
number of ecclesiastics and others whom be drew over 
out of that country, and gave appointments to in 
England. 

But w4iat planted tbe French language in England 
was the acquisition of tbe dominion of tbe country by 
William Duke of Normandy in tbe memorable year 
1066. 

There is no ground for tbe statement which has often 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 49 

I 

I been made that the Conqueror sought to exthpate the 

i EngUsh language, and to substitute the French in its 

I place. He was incapable of entertaining a project so 

j palpably impracticable. So far, in fact, was he from 

cherishing any dislike to the language of his new subjects 

I that he is recorded to have at first applied himself yigo- 

i rously to learn English, till more pressing occupations 

i compelled him to give up the attempt. He probably 

i! found that to conquer the language was harder work 

than to conquer the country at the age at w^hich he had 

arrived ; for he was about forty when he became king. 

Among the consequences, however, of the great revo- 
lution that had taken place, were the following : — 

1. A French-speaking royal family was placed upon 
the throne, surrounded, of course, by a French-speaking 
court. Even when the male line of the Conqueror died 
out, it was succeeded by another, that of the Planta- 
genets of Anjou, which was also French. It is known, 
in fact, that French continued to be the language in 
common use with every English king from the Conqueror 
down to Richard the Second inclusive, or to the end of 
the fourteenth century ; it is not kno^^n that, with the 
exception, perhaps, of Eichard the Second, any one of 
them ever did or could speak English. 

2. A very great number of Normans, all speaking 
French, were brought over and settled in the kingdom. 
There were the military forces, by which the conquest 
was achieved and maintained, both those in command 
and the private soldiers ; there was a vast body of 
churchmen, spread over the land, and occupying event- 
ually every ecclesiastical office in it, from the primacy 
down to that of the humblest parish or chapel priest, 
besides haK filling, probably, all the monastic esta- 

E 



50 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 

blishments; there were all the officers of state and 
inferior civil functionaries down to nearly the lowest 
grade ; finally, there were, with few exceptions, all the 
landholders, great and small, throughout the kingdom. 
The members of all these classes and their families 
must have been at first entirely ignorant of English, 
and they and their descendants would naturally continue 
for a longer or shorter time to use only the language of 
their ancestors. 

3. Although it may be inferred from the expressions 
of Ordericus Vitalis, a contemporary chronicler, that at 
first causes at law were pleaded in English even before 
the Conqueror himself, — for it was specially in order to 
be able to understand the pleadings without the inter- 
vention of an interpreter that William, according to 
that writer, set himself to study the language, — it would 
yet appear that French soon came to be exclusively the 
language of oral pleading, at least in all the superior 
courts. It could not well be otherwise, while the 
judges in those courts were all Normans. No law 
or express ordinance introducing such a practice is upon 
record ; but there is an act of the legislature, as we shall 
presently find, which distinctly attests the fact of its 
existence. Neither laws nor deeds, however, were ever 
drawn up in French till more than a century and a half 
after the Conquest ; all the new laws that were promul- 
gated were in Latin till after the accession of Edward 
the First (in ] 272), when they began to be sometimes 
in Latin, sometimes in French. Even the judgments 
or decisions of the courts, in which the pleadings were 
in French, were not always enrolled in that language, 
but often in Latin. And the charters granted by the 
Conqueror were frequently in EngHsh, as were also those 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 51 

granted by the succeeding Norman kings down to the 
accession of Henry the Second (in 1154), when Latin 
was substituted, which had been the language uniformly 
employed for the same purpose by the old Saxon kings 
down to the time of Alfred the Great. (See Palgrave's 
Bise and Progress of the English Commonwealth, 
i. 56.) 

The results, however, were : — 

1. That, Latin continuing to be as heretofore the 
language in which all learned works were written, in 
popular literatui'e the native language of the country 
was completely supplanted by the foreign tongue which 
the Normans had imported. 

2. That French came to be for a time understood and 
spoken extensively even by the population of English 
blood. 

Robert Holcot, writinof in the beoinnincf of the four- 

' D DO 

teenth century, informs us that there was no English 
taught in the schools of his time, but that the first lan- 
guage children learned when they went to school was 
the French, and that through the medium of that they 
were afterwards taught Latin. This practice, he says, 
was introduced at the Conquest, and had continued ever 
since. The teachers, in fact, who were all churchmen, 
were most of them foreigners, and altogether, or nearly 
altogether, unacquainted ^^ith English. Holcot s state- 
ment is repeated by Ralph Higden about the middle of 
the same centuiy, with some additional particulars. 
English children at school, Higden says, against the 
usage and manner of all other nations, were compelled 
to give up the use of their own language, and to con- 
strue their lessons in French ; and such had been the 
universal practice ever since the Normans first came 



52 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOEY OF 

over to England. Moreover, it is added, gentlemen's 
children were taught to speak French from the time 
they were rocked in thek cradles, or could speak at all ; 
and even country people would imitate gentlemen, and 
affected likemse to speak French, that they might be the 
more thought of. 



I 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 53 



Xm. In the new circumstances, political and social, in 
which England was placed by the Norman Con- 
quest, the old literaiy language of the countiy 
perished with the peculiar civilisation of which it 
foimed a part, somewhat as did the classical 
Latin after the overthrow of the Eoman empire ; 
but more rapidly, in consequence of the important 
additional disadvantage of having to sustain the 
rivalry of a new civiUsation, and of another 
tongue also beginning to be employed in litera- 
ture. Ceasing to be read or patronised, it ceased 
to be written ; and, no longer written, it soon 
came to be no longer understood. 

The only considerable Anglo-Saxon composition that 
; is known to have been wiitten after the XoiTaan Conquest 
is the portion of the Saxon Chronicle extending from 
[; that event to the death of King Stephen (in 1154). 
Before this latter date the Anglo-Saxon had apparently 
begun to be looked upon as a dead language, and to be 
only studied as such by a few antiquaries, like the 
Latin chi'oniclers Florence of Worcester and Hemy of 
Huntingdon. 

The term Anglo-Saxon, whether as applied to the 
language or to the people by whom it was spoken, must 
be understood to mean Saxon of England, as distin- 
guished from Saxon of the Continent ; just as Anglo- 
I Norman means Xoiman of England, as distinguished 



54 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 

from Norman of the Continent. It is a compomid 
formed bj using Saxon for the name of the people and 
of the language, and England for that of the country. 
The Anglo-Saxon is merely one dialect of Saxon, as the 
Continental or Old Saxon is another. It does not mean, 
as is sometimes supposed, the language of the Angles 
and Saxons. 

Our ancestors, by whom this language was spoken, 
usually called their country England {Engla-land or 
Anglia), and themselves and their language English. 
These are the terms commonly used in the Saxon 
Chronicle. Beda entitles his Latin History Historia 
Gentis Anglorum Ecclesiastica, and, in enumerating the 
languages spoken in Britain, he designates that of the 
Angles and Saxons generally as lingua Anglorum ; but 
sometimes he has Angli sive Saxones, and Anglica sive 
Saxonica (lingua). The Latin chroniclers after the 
Conquest (England and the English having now come 
to be the established names of the country and its inha- 
bitants) commonly take advantage- of the term Saxon to 
distinguish the people and the language before that 
revolution. It may be doubted, perhaps, in which sense 
we are to understand the Angulsaxones of Asser, the 
biographer of Alfred the Great, before the Conquest, 
and the Angidsaxones, Angli-Saxones, and Anglo-Saxones 
of Florence of Worcester after it, — whether, that is to 
say, as meaning the Saxons of England or the Angles 
and Saxons; but in modern philology, at any rate, 
Anglo-Saxon can only be understood in the former 
sense. It distinguishes, as has been said, the Saxon of ^ 
England from the Old Saxon of the Continent. If, j 
again, the only distinction sought to be made be between 
the modern language or people and those of the times. j 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 55 

preceding the Norman Conquest, the latter are often 
designated simply by the terms Saxon and Saxons. 

The following are some of the principal grammatical 
peculiarities in which the Anglo-Saxon differs from what 
is now called English : — 

The nouns, both substantive and adjective, are of 
three genders — masculine, feminine, and neuter. 

The cases are formed by variations of the termination, 
the terminations being : — 

Sing. Nom a, e, u, oiv, or a Consonant. 

Ace e, u, oiv, or a Consonant. 

Dat. &Abl. ... a, e, or a Consonant (commonly 
an or um). 

Gen a, e, or a Consonant (commonly 

es or aji), 

Vlvoc. Nom a, ^, w, or a Consonant (commonly 

an or as). 

Ace always the same with the Nom. 

Dat. &Abl. ... always ion. 
Gen generally a, ena, or ra, some- 
times u. 
Both the indefinite article an, and the definite se, seo, 
thaet, are declined, like other adjectives. The latter is 
also used both as the demonstrative and as the relative 
pronoun. And the relative pronoun is often expressed 
by the indeclinable the, which has now come to be used 
as the definite article. The indefinite article in Anglo- 
Saxon is sometimes expressed by sum, and often (as in 
Greek or Latin) not expressed at all. 

The personal pronouns, — Ic (I), thu (thou), he, heo, hit 
(lie, she, it), as well as the possessive and inten^ogative 
pronouns, are also all declined. He and hit make his 



Ill 



'56 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOEY OF 



) ' in the genitive sing. ; heo makes hire ; thence evidently 

our his and her. Our their appears to be the gen. plur. 
hira (common to all the genders); as our they is the 
nom. plur. hi. Him, again, is the Anglo-Saxon dat. 
sing. masc. and neut., and dat. plur. in all the genders. 
In the Anglo-Saxon verb, the infinitive ends in an; 
the present participle in ende, the past participle in od, 
or ed, or d. The prefix ge is found with all parts of the 
verb, but most commonly with the parts expressing past 
time. In the present indicative the termination of the 
2d pers. sing, is ast or st, that of the 3d pers. ath or th; 
that of the plural persons ath. The terminations of the 
singular persons of the past tense are in the indicative, 
de, dest, de ; in the subjunctive, de throughout ; so that 
both tenses are completely distinguished from the past 
participle passive : the plural persons in both tenses all 
end in don. 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 57 



XIV. There still, however, remained in use as the com- 
mon or vernacular tongue a species or form of 
Saxon, differing from the Saxon that was written 
before the Conquest chiefly by its comparative 
want or neglect of inflections. 

The written Anglo-Saxon, as we have seen, is, like 
the Greek or the Latin, what may be called an in- 
flectional language. But we do not know that this was 
the only form of the language in use even before the 
Conquest. In any country, the standard or literary lan- 
guage of which is highly inflectional, it would seem to be 
not unnatural, but rather what might be looked for, that 
there should exist also an oral dialect of a less artificial 
character and looser texture ; for it is found that, what- 
ever may be the advantages of a certain Idnd which an 
elaborate system of inflection gives to a language, all 
the ordinary purposes of communication can be suffi- 
ciently attained with very little inflection, or even with 
none at all. It is remarkable that the language which 
is, perhaps, the oldest in the world, the Chinese, is also 
the least inflected of aU languages. This fact might 
awaken a suspicion that, perhaps, the latest stage of 
language may consist in its complete emancipation from 
inflection and the shackles of grammar. Here, as in 
other cases, the simplest form of the instrument may be 
found to be the most perfect. It does not appear that 
the Chinese language is found by those to whom it is 
native to be, in consequence of its scanty or no grammar, 



58 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 

deficient either in distinctness or even in rhetorical and 
poetical expressiveness. 

It has been conjectui'ed that the Italian language may 
have been a spoken dialect even among the ancient 
Romans. It is possible that in the same manner each 
of the other Neo-Latin tongues, as they are called, may 
have sprung up and acquired in great part its peculiar 
form before the Western Empne was overthrowoi, and its 
provinces overrun, or at least taken possession of, by the 
northern barbarians. What is called the Romaic, or 
modern Greek, may be substantially a popular idiom of 
ancient times. The great literary language of India, 
the Sanscrit, has its less elaborately artificial form, the 
Pracrit. So may there have been, even in the best days 
of the written or classical Anglo-Saxon, a spoken dialect 
of the language which was comparatively uninflectional ; 
and this, preserved on the lips of the people, may have 
smndved the Xorman Conquest, when the Uterary lan- 
guage sunk before its foreign rival. 

But if, as is commonly assumed, the irregular Saxon 
which we find to have been in use after the Conquest 
was a new form of speech, which had in some way or 
other been produced by that catastrophe, — was, in other 
words, the old national language in ruins, — it may be 
held as certain that it was not through any dnect action 
of the French language upon it, as used to be the received 
explanation, that the corruption of the Saxon was brought 
about. There is not a trace of French to be found in 
the supposed new dialect. Nor would an intermixture 
of French have produced the peculiar change wiiich 
distinguishes that dialect from the regular Saxon. 
Finally, such a change, consisting in the breaking up of 
the inflectional system of the language, if it cannot be 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 59 

affirmed to have taken place in conformity with a ten- 
dency inherent in all languages, is at least only what 
has happened, in a greater or less degree, to every other 
language of the stock to which the Anglo-Saxon belongs. 
The first English writer by whom attention was called 
to this last consideration was probably the late Dr. Alex- 
ander Murray, who died in 1813, though his History 
of European Languages was not given to the world till 
1823. He there observes (i. 21), speaking of the change 
which the Anglo-Saxon is supposed to have undergone 
in the period immediately subsequent to the Conquest : — 
** A similar process was observable, at the same time, in 
the kindred dialects of Holland and Germany, though 
exposed to no external violence. . . . These continental 
tongues insensibly left the greater part of the inflections 
which they inherited from antiquity." But the fullest 
and most distinct statement upon the whole question is 
that of the late Mr. Price, in the Preface to his edition 
of Warton's History of English Poetry (1824, p. 109): 
— "An influx of foreigners, or a constant intercourse 
with and dependence upon them, may coiTupt the idiom 
of a dialect to a limited extent, or charge it with a large 
accumulation of exotic terms ; but tliis change in the 
external relation of the people speaking the dialect will 
neither confound the original elements of which it is 
composed nor destroy the previous character of its 
grammar. The lingua franca, as it is called, of the 
shores washed by the Mediterranean Sea contains an 
admixture of words requiring all the powers of an 
erudite linguist to trace the several ingredients to their 
parent sources ; yet, with all the corruptions and inno- 
vations to which this oddly assorted dialect has been 
subjected, it invariably acknowledges the laws of Itahan 



60 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOKY OF 

grammar. A similar inundation of foreign terms is to 
be found in the German \Miters of the seventeenth 
century, where the mass of Latin, Greek, and French 
expressions almost exceeds the number of vernacular 
words ; vet here again the stranger matter has been 
made to accommodate itself to the same inflections and 
modal changes as those which govern the native stock. 
. . . That some change had taken place in the style of 
composition and general structure of the language since 
the days of Alfred, is a matter beyond dispute ; but that 
these mutations were a consequence of the Norman 
invasion, or were even accelerated by that event, is 
wholly incapable of proof ; and nothing is supported 
upon a firmer principle of rational induction than that 
the same effects would have ensued if William and his 
followers had remained in their native soil. The sub- 
stance of the change is admitted on all hands to consist 
in the suppression of those grammatical intricacies 
occasioned by the inflection of nouns, the seemingly 
arbitrary distinctions of gender, the government of 
prepositions, &c. How far this may be considered as 
the result of an innate law of the language, or some 
general law in the organisation of those who spoke it, 
we may leave for the present undecided ; but that it was 
in no way dependent upon external circumstances is 
established by this undeniable fact, — that every branch 
of the Low German stock, from w^hence the Anglo-Saxon 
sprang, displays the same simplification of its grammar. 
In all these languages there has been a constant ten- 
dency to relieve themselves of that precision which 
chooses a fresh symbol for every shade of meaning, to 
lessen the amount of nice distinctions, and detect as it 
were a royal road to the interchange of opuiion." 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 61 

The obsers^ation with regard to the simplification 
of their grammatical structure undergone by all the 
languages of the Low Germanic stock has since been 
extended to the Scandinavian languages of Denmark 
and Sweden ; so that, whether the Anglo- Saxon is to be 
regarded as belonging exclusively to the Low Germanic 
or partially to the Scandinavian stock, its transition 
from an inflected to a comparatively uninflected con- 
dition would appear to admit of being accounted for by 
a tendency probably inherent in its constitution. 

Mr. Price, however, in the above passage, perhaps 
goes too far in denyuig all connexion between the 
breaking up of the inflectional system of the Anglo- 
Saxon and the Norman Conquest. He seems to view 
the change which is admitted to have taken place in the 
language in the eleventh or twelfth century as having 
been in progress from a much earlier date, and as 
having then only reached its natural completion. No 
evidence of the previous part of the movement, however, 
has been produced. Nor can it, perhaps, be regarded as 
yet clearly made out that the dissolution or derangement 
of the original inflectional structure of the other Low 
Germanic and Scandinavian tongues which have been 
referred to may not have been at least precipitated by 
pohtical or social disturbances. 

Mr. Guest, who would apparently assign the trans- 
formation of the language from Saxon into English to 
about the middle of the twelfth century, offers the 
following theory of the way in which the change was 
brought about (Eng. Rhythms, ii. 105, &c.): — ''The 
causes which, in the twelfth century, gave birth to the 
Old English w^orked nearly at the same time a like 
change in all the kindred dialects, save the most 



62 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 

northerly, which, safe from their influence amid the 
snows of Iceland and of Sweden, long retained (and 
indeed still retain) many of the earliest features of our 
language. . . A difference is always to be found between 
the written and the spoken language of a people. The 
look, the tone, the action, are means of expression which 
the speaker may employ, and the writer cannot ; to 
make himself understood, the latter must use language 
more precise and definite than the former. There is 
also another reason for this difference. When a language 
has no written literature, it is ever subject to a change 
of pronunciation ; and so determinate is the direction of 
tl^ese changes, that it may be marked out between limits 
much narrower than any one has yet ventured to lay 
Ao^Ml. But mth a written literature a new element 
enters into the calculation. A standard for composition 
now exists, which the writer will naturally prefer to the 
varying dialect of the people, and, as far as he safely 
may, will do his best to follow. In this way the \\Titten 
and the spoken languages will act and react upon each 
other ; and it must depend upon the value of the litera- 
ture and the reading habits of the people, which of them 
shall at last prevail. . . The language of our earlier 
literature fell at last a victim, not to the Norman Con- 
quest, for it survived that event at least a century — 
not to the foreign jargon which the weak but well- 
meaning Edward first brought into the country, for 
French did not mix with our language tiU the days of 
Chaucer ; — it fell before the same deep and mighty 
influences which swept every living langaage from the 
literature of Europe. When the South regained its 
ascendancy, and Rome once more seized the wealth of 
vassal provinces, its favourite priests had neither the 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 63 

knowledge requisite to understand, nor tastes fitted to 
enjoy, the literature of the countries into which they 
were promoted. The road to their favour and their 
patronage lay elsewhere ; and the monk, giving up his 
mother tongue as worthless, began to pride himself only 
upon his Latinity. The legends of his patron saint he 
Latinized, the story of his monastery he Latinized ; in 
Latin he wrote histor}^ in Latin he ^M'ote satires and 
romances. Amid these labours he had little time to 
study the niceties of Anglo-Saxon grammar ; and the 
Homilies, the English Scriptm^es, Caedmon's paraphrase, 
the national songs, the magnificent Judith, and other 
treasures of native genius, must soon have lain on the 
shelves of his cloister as little read, or, if read, almost 
as little understood, as if they had been written in a 
foreign tongue. When he addressed himself to the 
unlearned, noble or ignoble, he used the vulgar dialect 
of his shire, with its idioms, which the written dialect 
had probably rejected as wanting in precision, and vdth 
its corrupt pronunciation, which alone would require 
new forms of grammar. In this way many specimens 
of our Old English dialects have been handed down to 
us : and these, however widely they differ from each 
other, agree in one particular, — in confounding the 
characteristic endings of the Anglo-Saxon." 

This last statement is explained by a preceding 
paragraph: — "The Anglo-Saxons had three vowel- 
endings, a, e, and u, to distinguish the cases of the 
noun and the different conjugations of the verb. In 
the Old English all these vowel -endings were repre- 
sented by the final e ; and the loss of the final e is the 
characteristic mark of our modem dialect. It is obvious 
that either of these changes must have brought with it a 



64 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 

iie>v language. The confusion of the vowels, or the loss 
of the final e, was a confounding of tense and person, 
of case and number ; in short, of those grammatical 
forms to which language owes its precision and its 
clearness. Other forms were to be sought for, before 
our tongue could again serve the purposes of science 
or of literature." 

Mr. Guest's solution of the case would, therefore, 
appear to be, that what brought about the corruption 
of the classic Saxon was simply the neglect of that 
language on the part of the Romish Churchmen, and 
the preference they were led to give, for literary pur- 
poses, to the Latin. But how was it that this cause 
did not begin to operate till the twelfth century? In 
England, as elsewhere, Latin had been the professional 
language of the clergy from the first introduction of 
Christianity, and had been all along the language in 
which they usually wrote : witness Beda, Nennius, Asser, 
and others who lived before the Conquest. Why did 
not the corruption of Anglo-Saxon into Old English, if 
this was the "sole cause of it, take place in the eighth 
or ninth centmy? 

If even so slightly inflected a language as our present 
English were to cease to be written and to be read, how^ 
long would it continue to be correctly spoken? Not 
for a generation, probably. 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 65 



XV. In reference to the progress of the language, the 
space from about the middle of the Eleventh 
to the middle of the Thirteenth century, or the 
first two centuries after the Conquest, may be 
designated the Period of Semi- Saxon. In the 
popular dialect of this period we have a work 
of considerable length in verse, the Chronicle of 
Layamon. 

Layamon's work has been edited by Sir Frederic 
Madden, under the title of " Layamon's Brut, or Chro- 
nicle of Britain; a poetical Semi- Saxon Paraphrase of 
the Brut of Wace," with a literal translation, notes, and 
a glossary, in 3 vols, royal 8vo., London, 1847. Wace 
was a Norman poet, whose metrical chronicle of Britain, 
called Brut d'Angleterre, was written about the middle 
of the twelfth century. Layamon, who calls himself a 
priest of Emleye, near Severn, that is, of Areley-Begis, 
near Stourport, in Worcestershire (as first pointed out 
by Mr. Guest in Penny CyclopcBdia, xx. 488), otherwise 
called Lower Areley, appears to have written in the 
latter part of the same century, or in the first half of 
the second century after the Conquest. Sir Frederic 
Madden thinks that his work, which extends to above 
fourteen thousand long verses (divided by Sir Frederic 
into double that number of hemistichs) was probably com- 
pleted about A.D. 1200. The views that have been taken 
of his language, even by the most competent among 

F 



66 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 

recent authorities, are not altogether accordant. Mr. 
Price (Freface to Warton, 109), commenting upon a 
remark of Mr. Mitford (in his Harmony of Language)^ 
that it " displays all the appearance of a language thrown 
into confusion by the circumstances of those who spoke 
it," affirms that, so far from this being the case, " nearly 
every important form of Anglo-Saxon grammar is rigidly 
adhered to ; and so little was the language altered at 
this advanced period of Norman influence, that a few 
slight alterations might convert it into genuine Anglo- 
Saxon." Mr. Guest {Eng. RhytJims, ii. Ill, &c.) ob- 
serves, that one of the most striking peculiarities of 
Layamon's language is its nuniiation (from Nun, the 
name of the letter n in Hebrew). " Many words end in 
n, which are strangers to that letter, not only in the 
Anglo-Saxon, but in all the later dialects of our lan- 
guage ; and, as this letter assists in the declension of 
nouns and the conjugation of verbs, the grammar of this 
dialect becomes, to a singular degree, complicated and 
difficult." Afterwards (p. lo6)he says ; " Layamon seems 
to have halted between two languages, the written and 
the spoken. Now he gives us what appears to be the 
Old English dialect of the west ; and, a few sentences 
further, we find om'selves entangled in all the pecu- 
liarities of the Anglo- Saxon." In the Penny Cjfclopcedia 
(xx. 488) he remarks that Ijayamon most probably used 
the dialect of Worcestershire, the part of the country in 
vrhich he lived. His English, or Saxon, at any rate, is 
clearly southern as opposed to northern, and western as 
opposed to eastern. 

Sir Frederic Madden (Pref. xxv) also holds that the 
dialect of Layamon's poem must be taken to be that of 
North Worcestershire, the district in which the writer 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 67 

lived. Although this locality was within the bounds 
of what was called the kingdom of Mercia, the dialect, 
he observes, is decidedly that of the w^est, which was 
substantially the same with that of the south, of Eng- 
land. He thinks there can be no doubt that the written 
language of the country, previous to the Conquest, was 
more stable in its character and more obser^^ant of gram- 
matical accuracy than the spoken ; and that there are 
miany reasons to induce us to believe that the spoken 
language in the reign of Edw^ard the Confessor did not 
materially differ from that v/hich is found in manuscripts 
a century later {Pre/, xxvii.). " The language of Laya- 
mon," he then goes on, " belongs to that transition 
period in which the groundwork of Anglo-Saxon phrase- 
ology and grammar still existed, although gi'adually 
yielding to the influence of the popular forms of speech. 
We find in it, as in the later portion of the Saxon 
Chronicle, marked indications of a tendency to adopt 
those terminations and sounds w^hich characterise a lan- 
guage in a state of change, and which are apparent also 
in some other branches of the Teutonic tongue." The 
peculiarities distinguishing it from the pure Anglo- 
Saxon he enumerates as being : — '* the use of a as an 
article; — the change of the Anglo-Saxon terminations 
a and an into e and en, as well as the disregard of in- 
flections and genders; — the masculine forms given to 
neuter nouns in the plural ; — the neglect of the femi- 
nine terminations of adjectives and pronouns, and con- 
fusion between the definite and indefinite declensions ; 
— the introduction of the preposition to before infinitives, 
and occasional use of weak tenses of verbs and participles 
instead of strong ; — the constant occurrence of en for on 
in the plurals of verbs, and frequent elision of the final 



68 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOEY OF 

e; — together with the uncertainty of the rule for the 
gOYernment of prepositions." There are also numerous 
vowel-changes, which are described as not altogether 
arbitrary. 

The nunnation in which Layamon indulges, or his 
" addition of a final n to certain cases of nouns and 
adjectives, to some tenses of verbs, and to several other 
parts of speech," is characterised as being by no means 
uniform or constant, and as in numerous instances of final 
rhyme possibly used only for the sake of euphony, that 
is, of supplj'ing the requisite consonance. Its use, Sir 
Frederic thinks, was probably restricted to the dialect 
in which the poem is written. We have the poem in 
two texts, both apparently of the thirteenth century, but 
one probably a little later than the other. There is less 
of nunnation in the later text. And even in the earlier, 
we are told, " there are many passages in which it has 
been struck out or erased by a second hand, and some- 
times by the first ; so that it is manifest that some 
doubt must have existed as to the propriety of its 
usage." 

The distinguishing marks of the western dialect in 
Layamon are enumerated by Sir Frederic as being chiefly 
" the termination of the present tense plural in th, and 
infinitives in i, ie, or y ; the forms of the plural per- 
sonal pronouns, heo, heore, heom ; the frequent oc- 
currence of the prefix i before past participles ; the use 
of V for/; and prevalence of the vowel it for i or y, in 
such words as dude, hudde, hulle, putte, hure, &c." In 
the later text he conceives an Anglian or northern 
element to have probably been infused into the dialect. 
This text he thinks may perhaps have been written on 
the east side of Leicestershire. 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 69 

The following Hues from tlie description of the arm- 
ing of Prince Arthur before the famous battle of Bath, 
or Baddon Hill, will afford a specimen of Layamon's 
language : — 

" He heng an Ms sweore aene sceld deore ; 
His nome was on Brutisc Pridwen iliaten: 
Ther was innen igrauen mid rede golde stauen 
An onlicnes deore of Drilitenes moder. 
His spere lie nom an honde, tha Ron wes ihaten. 
Tha he liafden al his iweden tha leop he on his steden. 
Tha he niihte behalden tha bihalnes stoden 
Thene uaeireste cniht the verde scolde leden ; 
Ne isaeh naevere na man selere cniht nenne 
Thenne him wes Arthur, athelest cunnes."* 

That is, literally : — 

He hmig on his neck a dear [precious] shield ; 

Its name was in British called Pridwen : 

There was within [on it] engraven with red gold tracings 

A dear likeness of the Lord's mother. 

His spear he took in hand that was called Eon. 

When he had all his weeds [accoutrements], then leapt he on 

his steed. 
Then they might behold that beside stood 
The fairest knight that host should lead ; 
Nor saw never no man better knight none 
Than was Arthur, he noblest of kin. 

Another work in verse is commonly mentioned along 
^vith Layamons Chronicle as of the same age ; that 
known as the Onnuliim, from its author, who calls him- 

* Verses (or hemistichs) 21,149 — 21,168; Madden's edition, 
ii. 464, 465. The passage is also printed, with one or two vaii- 
ations, by Mr. Guest. 



70 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 

\ 

self Ormin or Onn. The Ormulum still remains in MS. ; , 
only extracts have been printed by Hickes and Wanley, J 
and in Mr. Guest's and other modem works.* Hickes f 
goes SO far as to place it among the first writings after | 
the Conquest. Tyrwhitt, who, in his Essay on the Lan- 
guage and Versification of Chaucer, was the first to point 
out that it was written in verse, only ventures to say 
that he cannot conceive it to have been earlier than the 
reign of Henry the Second (or the latter half of the twelfth 
century). Mr. Guest, who, although he seems in one place ' ■ 
(Eng. Bhythms, i. 107) to speak of Ormin as having writ- 
ten in the beginning of the thirteenth century, elsewhere 
(ii. 185) assigns his poem to the latter half of the twelfth, 
considers it " the oldest, the purest, and by far the most 
valuable specimen of our Old English dialect that time 
has left us." He adds : — " Ormin used the dialect of 
his day ; and, when he wanted precision or uniformity, 
he followed out the principles on which that dialect 
rested. Were we thoroughly masters of his grammar 
and vocabulary, we might hope to explain many of the 
difficulties in which blunders of transcription and a 
transitional state of the language have involved the 
syntax and the prosody of Chaucer.'* (Ibid.) Afterwards 
(ii. 209), he intimates that, if he were called upon to say 
in what part of England a dialect such as Ormin 's was 
ever spoken, he would fix upon some county north of 
Thames and south of Lincolnshire. 

* Mr. Thorpe states (Analecta Anglo- Saxonica, Neiv Edit. 
1846, Pref. xii.) that an edition of the Ormulum hy the Kev. Dr. 
White, late Eawlinsonian Professor of Anglo-Saxon, was then in 
course of printing at the University Press, Oxford ; and, accord- 
ing to Sir Frederic Madden {Layamon, Pre/, vii.) it was in 1847 
nearly ready for publication. 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 71 

The following is a portion of one of the extracts from 
the Ormulum given bv Mr. Guest. Ormin, however, 
practises a spelling pecuhar to liimself, which appears 
to consist in always doubling the consonant after a short 
vowel ; is and it, for example, he writes iss and itt ; this 
private crotchet, which has nothing to do with his lan- 
guage, may for the present be disregarded, notwith- 
standing that Ormin expressly charges all who copy his 
book to write the letters twice wherever he has done so, 
assuring them that otherwise they will not write the 
word aright :^^ — 

" God segde thus till Abraham : — Tac Isaac thin wenchel. 
And snith it als it waere an sliep, and leg it up on alter, 
And bren it all til askes thaer, and offi:e it me to lake. 
And Abraham was foithriglit bmi to don Drihtenes wille, 
And toe his sune sons anan, and band it fet and bande, 
And legde it up on alter swa, and droh bis swerd off sbaetbe, 
And bof the swerd up with bis band to smiten it to daede ; 
Forth at he wclde ben til God hersmn on alle wise. 

And God sab that be wolde slaeu the child with swerdes egge; 
And segde thus til Habraham (that wit tu well to sothe) : — 
Hald, Abraham, bald up thin hand, ne sla thu noht tin wenchel; 
Nu wat I that tu draedest God, and lufest God with herte ; 
Tac thaer an shep baften thm bac, and offre it for thin wenchel. 
And Abraham tha snath that shep, and let his sune hbben ; 
For that he wolde ben to God bersum on alle wise." 

* If the accuracy of Mr. Guest's transcript may be rebed upon 
(wliicb it probably may), Ormin's speUing, as it stands in the 
MS., is by no means uniformly accordant with his own rule. In 
the short passage to be immediately quoted (to pass over ques- 
tionable cases) we have tac in I. 1, and tacc in /. 13; it in /. 6, 
and itt everj'where else ; that in /. 8, and thatt in I. 9, and else- 
where; onn allterr in /. 2, and on allterr in Z. 6 ; icith in /. 7, and 
witlilh in I. 9, and icitth in I. 12 ; forr that in I. 8, and forr 
thatt in /. 15 ; wolde in I. 9, wollde in /. 8 and /. 15. 



72 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 

That is, in our present English : — 

God said thus to Abraham : — Take Isaac, thine httle-child, 
And slay it as it were an sheep, and lay it upon [the] altar, 
And bum it all to ashes there, and offer it me for gift. 
And Abraham was forthwith bound [engaged in proceeding] 

to do [the] Lord's ^dll. 
And took his son soon anon, and bound him foot and hand,* 
And laid it upon [the] altar so, and drew his sword [out] of 

sheath, 
And heaved the sword up with his hand to smite it to death ; 
For that he would be to God obedient in all wise. 

And God saw that he would [was mlling to] slay the child 

with sword's edge. 
And said thus to Abraham [that wot thou well for sooth] ; 
Hold, Abraham, hold up thine hand, nor slay thou not thine 

little -child ; 
Now knoAV I that thou dreadest God, and lovest God with 

heart ; 
Take there an sheep behind tliuie back, and offer it for thine 

little-child. 
And Abraham then slew the sheep, and let his son live ; 
For that he would be to God obedient in all wise. 

It is impossible to compare the extracts that have 
been given from Layanion and the Ormidum without 
being led to entertain the strongest doubts as to the 
correctness of the common assumption that they are 
works of the same age. They do not exhibit the lan- 
guage in the same stage, or, at least, in the same state. 
The grammar of Layamon is half Saxon, or more than 
half Saxon ; it may be questioned if that of the Ormulum 
have retained a vestige of what is distinctively Saxon. If 
it were certain that the two w^orks were of the same age, 

"^ Mr. Guest translates "feet and hands," understanding the 
e in hande to be the sign of the plural. 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 73 

we should be compelled to conclude that the language 
had m one part of the country advanced a complete stage 
beyond the point to which it had attained in another, — 
that the people of the west were still speaking Saxon 
while those of the eastern counties were speaking English. 
But, in truth, there is no evidence whatever that the two 
works are of the same age. The Ormulum, like many 
other pieces which have been assigned to the twelfth 
century, is much more probably of the latter part of the 
thirteenth.* In that case, Layamon and it will belong, 
according to the arrangement here adopted, to different 
periods in the history of the language. 

The Ormulum, as Mr. Guest urges {Eng. Rhythms, ii. 
209) *' ought to be published, and all its peculiarities 
investigated." It is possible that if it were carefully 
examined throughout, some reference might be detected 
which would determine its age. Even Ormin s peculiar 
spelling, in so far as it can be ascertained, might pro- 
bably be found to have preserved something of the 
history of the language. If it really was his practice to 
double the consonant after every vowel having the short 
or shut sound (as in ou.r modern bad, bed, bid, not, bud), 
and to leave it single after the long or name sound (as 
in mate, meet, mite, mote, mute), then from the short 



* " It may be proper to observe here," says Price, in a note 
on the First Section of Warton's History, — ^in which several of 
these pieces are hrought forward, although the Ormulum is not 
mentioned, — "that the dates assigned to the several compositions 
quoted in this Section are extremely arbitrary and uncertain. 
Judging from internal evidence — a far more satisfactory criterion 
than Warton's computed age of his MSS. — there is not one which 
may not safely be referred to the thirteenth centuiy, and by far 
the greater number to the close of that period." 



74 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOEY OF 

passage wliicli has been quoted above we should learn 
that God, thus, till, up, forth, will, his, off, u'it,for, edge, 
hack, were probably all pronounced in his day, as at 
present, with the shut sound ; thine, sheep, smite (or 
smiten), child, with the name sound ; that the e in legge 
[lay) and in the first syllable oiseggde [said] was sounded 
as in our egg ; that snith and snath rhymed not to our 
lith and lath, but to our lithe and lathe; that hun was 
probably pronounced boon, and don, doon or dun ; that 
toe was called took, and the first syllable of sothe, sooth, 
as at present ; that hoff was probably sounded hofe, or 
hove; that they probably said, not liffest or lovest (as we 
do), but loofest or loovest; that an was sounded am (as 
in bane) ; that heart was called hert (not heert), &c. In 
regard to some other words, we may, perhaps, doubt the 
accuracy of the MS. or of the transcript; as, for in- 
stance, that they should have ever said aind for and, or 
sometimes hand, sometimes haind ; sometimes it, on, 
with, that, take; sometimes ite, oan, withe, thait, tack; 
that they should have given some other than the short 
sound to the vowel in son and in band ; that they should 
have said weal for ivell, and wait for wat (or wot), and 
leet for let; and that they should have written in one 
place right, and in others drihhtenes and nohht, — unless, 
indeed, these differences, too, were designed to indicate 
a difi'erence in the sound of the vowel, to give it the 
name sound in right, and the shut sound in the other 
two words. 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 75 



XVI. After the middle of the Thirteenth century, the 
language assumes the general shape and phy- 
siognomy of the English which we now write and 
speak. It may be called Enghsh rough -hewn. 
The space from about the middle of the Thir- 
teenth to the middle of the Fourteenth century 
may be designated the Period of Old or (better) 
Early English. 

This division would accord sufficiently with the com- 
mon statement which gives as our earliest specimen of 
English (as distinguished from Saxon or semi-Saxon) a 
proclamation of King Henry the Third to the people of 
Huntingdonshire in 1258. It may be found, with a 
literal translation interlined, in the 4th vol. of Henry's 
History of Great Britain {Append. IV.). This historian 
does not say where he got it. It is printed, from the 
original preserved among the Patent Rolls in the Tower 
of London, in the new edition of Rymers Feeder a. 

But this legal paper can scarcely be safely quoted as ex- 
hibiting the current language of the time. Like all such 
documents, it is made up in great part of established 
phrases of form, many of which had probably become obso- 
lete in ordinary speech and writing. The English of the 
proclamation of 1258 is much less modem than that of the 
Ormulum, and fully as Saxon, both in the words and in 



7 b OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 

the grammar, as any part of Layamon's Chronicle, if not 
rather more so. 

The two principal literary works belonging to this 
period (that of Early English) are the metrical Chronicles 
of Robert of Gloucester and of Robert of Brunne. 

The Chronicle of Eobert of Gloucester was edited hy 
Thomas Hearne in 1724. The writer may be con- 
sidered as belonging to the first half of the present 
period : it has been shown by Sir Frederic Madden 
(Introd. to Havelok, lii.) that he must have sm^vived 
the year 1297. The following passage is doubly curious 
in reference to the history of the language : — 

** Thus come lo! Engelond into Normannes lionde. 
And the Normans ne couthe speke tho bote her owe speche, 
And speke French as dude atom, and here chyldren dude al so 

teche ; 
So that he^Tnen of thys lond, that of her blod come, 
Holdeth alle thulke speche that hii of hem nome ; 
Yor bote a man couthe French me tolth of hym wel lute : 
Ac lowe men holdeth to Englyss and to her kunde speche 

yute. 
Ich wene ther ne he man in world contreyes none 
That ne holdeth to her kunde speche, bote Engelond one. 
Ac wel me wot vor to conne both wel yt ys ; 
Tor the more that a man con, the more worth he ys." * 

That is, in modern words : — Thus came lo ! England 
into Normans' hand. And the Normans not could speak 
then but their own speech, and spake French as [they] 
did at home, and their children did all so teach ; so that 
high men of this land, that of their blood come, hold all 
the same speech that they of them took ; for but a man 

* Hearne, 3C4; Harl. MS. 201, fol, 127, r^ 



ill 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 77 

i know French men tell [reckon] of him well little [Men 
! peu] : but low men hold to English and to their natural 

speech yet. I ween there not he man in world countries 
■ none that not holdeth to thek natural speech, hut England 

[al-]one. But well I wot for to know both well it is ; 
i| for the more that a man knows, the more worth he is. 

Some of the peculiarities in the language of Robert of 

I Gloucester are probably to be attributed to the dialect 

i| he uses being that of the west of England. Robert of 

[ Briinne, that is, Bourne, in Lincolnshire, may be as- 

Ij sumed to have written in that of the east country. His 

I' proper name appears to have been Eobeit Manning ; 

and he may be placed perhaps half a centmy later than 

Robert of Gloucester, according to his own account of 

himself, in a Prologue to his Chronicle, in which he 

seems to say that the work was all written in the reign 

of Edward the ThiiTl, or after the year 1327. Heanie 

[Preface to Robert of Gloucester, lix) says it was finished 

in the year 1338. It consists of two parts ; the first of 

which is in octo-syllabic rhyme, and is a translation from 

Wace's Brut, the same original upon which Layamon _ 

worked ; the second is in Alexandrine verse, and is 

translated from a French chronicle recently wiitten by 

an Englishman, Piers or Peter de Langtoft, a canon 

regular of St. Austin, at Bridlington in Yorkshire. Only 

the second part has been piinted : it was edited by 

Heanie in 17*25. 

Both in his Chronicle and in other works Robert de 
Brmme distinctly claims to be considered as wanting in 
English ; and he is perhaps the earliest writer after the 
Conquest who uniformly and pointedly gives that name to 
his language. A few extracts wiU illustrate this state 



78 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOKY OF 

ment, and at the same time serve to exemplify the Eng- 
lish of De Brunne's day. 

The following passages are from the Prologue to the 
first part of the Chronicle, which Hearne has printed in 
the preface to his edition of the second part : — 

" Lordynges \_Lords] that be now here, 
If ye wille listene and lere {leaiii] 
All the story of Inglande, 

Als [as] Eobert Mannyng wryten it fand [written itfound]. 
And on [in] Inglysch has it schewed,' 
Not for the lered [learned], hot for the lewed [unlearned] ; 
For tho [those] that in this lond wonn [dwell] 
That the Latin no Frankys conn [Latin nor French know]. 
For to haf solace and gamen [game, enjoyment] 
In felawschip when thai [they] sitt samen [together]. 



After the Bretons the IngHs camen ; 

The lordschip of this lande thai namen [took] ; 

South and north, west and est. 

That calle men now the Inglis gest [history t] 

When thai first "amang the Bretons, 

That now ere [are] Inglis, than [then] were Saxons, 

Saxons, Inglis, hight alle oliche [were called all alike]. 



I mad noght for no disours [diseurs, professed tale-tellers]^ 

Ne [nor] for no seggers [sayers, reciters] no [nor] harpours, 

But for the luf [love] of symple men. 

That strange Inglis can not ken [know, understand] ; 

For many it ere [there are] that strange Inglis 

In ryme wate [wot, know] neuer wliat it is. 

Of Brunne I am, if any me blame ; 

Eobert Mann^Tig is my name : 

Blissed be he of God of heuene [heaven], 

That me Robert with gude wille neuene [named]. 

In the thiid Edwarde's tyme was I 

When I wrote alle this story. 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 1\) 

In the hous of Sixille* I was a tlirowe Iwhile^ ; 
Dans [Bomimis^ Eobert of Maltone, that ye know 
Did it write for felawes [fellows', brother monks'^ sake, 
When thai wild solace make." 

The following is from the Prologue to another of 
De Brunne's performances, his translation (preserved in 
MS. in the Bodleian Library) of Bishop Grosthead's 
I Manuel Peche (or Manual of Sins) : — 

" For lewede [unlearned, lay^ men Y [J] undyrtoke 
On [in'] Englysh tunge to make thys hoke ; 
For many hen of sw^^che manere [he of such manner] 
That talys and rymis wyl hlethly here [hlyihely hear] : 
In gamys and festys at the ale 
Love men to lestene trotevale [truth and all]. 



To alle Crystyn men undir sunne, 

And to gode men of Brunne ; 

And special! alle he name 

The felaushepe of Symprynghame ; 

Koherd of Brunne greteth yow 

In alle godenesse that may to prow [profit] 

Of Brymwake yn Kestevene, 

S}^e myle hesyde SjTiiprjTigham evene [exactly ?] 

I dwelled in the Prj^orye, 

Fyftene yere yn cumx)anye. 

In the tyme of gode Dane [Dominus] lone 

Of Camelton, that now ys gone ; 

In hys tyme was I ther ten yeres, 

And knewe and herde of hys maneres ; 

Sythyn [since] with Dan Ion of Clyntone, 

Fy^^e wyntyr wyth hym gan I wone [did I dwell], 

* Perhaps this should he Six Mile House. In the next ex- 
tract the author describes himself as having resided in the Priory 
of Brymwake in Kesteven (one of the divisions of Lincolnshire) 
" S}-x myle hesyde Sympryngham [Semprmgham]" 



80 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOEY OF 

Dan Felyp [P/w/?^] was maystyr in that tyine 

That y began thys Englyssh ryme ; 

The yeres of grace fyl [/t'/Z] than Ithenl to be 

A thousand and thre hundred and thre : 

In that tynie tiu-ned y thys 

On \ji?ito^ Englysh tunge out of Frankys IFrench'] ." 

(From War ton's History of English Poetry, i. 64.) 

This translation from Grosthead, it would appear from 
what is here said, was begun about a quarter of a cen- 
tury before the Chronicle translated from Langtoft. 
But, upon the whole, it may be held that, in the history 
of the language, Robert of Gloucester represents the 
first and Robert of Brunne the last half of the Period 
of Early English. 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 81 



XVII. Meanwhile, in the hterature of the country, and 
also in the oral intercourse of the most influ- 
ential classes of the population, the native lan- 
guage may be said to have been for the First 
century after the Norman Conquest completely 
overborne by the French ; for the Second, to 
have been in a state of revolt against that 
foreign tongue ; during the Third, to have been 
rapidly making head against it and regaimng its 
old supremacy. 

Or the three stages may be thus distinguished : — 
The first, comprehending the reigns of the Conqueror, 
his two sons, and Stephen, a space of 88 years ; the 
second, the reigns of Henry XL, his two sons, and 
Henry III., a space of 118 years ; the third, the reigns 
of Edward L, IL, and III., a space of 105 years.* In 
a loose or general sense the first and second of these 
spaces will correspond to what has been designated the 

* The reign of William I, {the Conqueror) began in 1066 ; 
that of his son, William II. {Ru/us), in 1087 ; that of his brother, 
Henry I., in 1100 ; that of Stephen in 1135 ; that of Henry II. in 
1154 ; that of his son, Richard I. {Cceur de Lion), in 1189 ; that 
of his brother, Jb/wi, in 1199; that of his son, Henry III.^ in 
1216 ; that of his son, Edward /., in 1272 ; that of his son, 
Edward II., in 1307 ; that of his son, Edward III., in 1327 ; 
and he reigned tiU 1377, or 311 years from the Conquest. 



82 OUTLINES OF TKE HISTORY OF 

Period of Semi-Saxon, and tlie third to the Period of 
Early Enghsh. 

What professes to he our earliest notice of the intro- 
duction of the French tongue into England, and of the 
extent to which it speedily came to he used, is found in 
the work styled The History of the Ahhey of Croy- 
land by Ingulphus (Ingulji Croylandensis Historia). 
Ingulphus was abbot of the monastery of Croyland, or 
Crowland, in Lincolnshire, from a.d. 1075 till 1109, 
when he died at the age of eighty. He was, therefore, 
at the time of the Norman Conquest, a man of between 
thirty and forty. But the History which bears his name 
is now generally regarded as a forgery of a later age, 
most probably of the beginning of the fourteenth or the 
end of the thirteenth century. It may, however, have 
been founded in part upon traditions or even documents 
of earlier origin. The amount of what it states upon 
the present subject is : — That even before the Conquest, 
in the reign of the Confessor, all the English nobility, 
following the fashion of the king, himself a Norman in all 
his habits and feelings, and of the other Normans with 
wdiom he had filled the highest offices in the kingdom, 
began both to speak French and to have their charters 
and other writings drawn up in that language ; and that, 
after the Conquest, not only were the laws and statutes 
of the realm promulgated in French, but that language 
was substituted for English in teaching boys at school 
the elements of grammar. The fact, however, is, as 
has been already stated, that the laws were published 
in Latin for more than two centuries after the Conquest. 
If they were ever also published in French, which is 
doubtful, and can hardly have been the case except in a 



'.Ai 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 83 

few instances, the French was a translation from the 
Latin. 

Warton and Tyrwhitt have collected various testi- 
monies which amply confirm what is stated in the Croy- 
land History as to the employment of French in the edu- 
cation of youth, and the general prevalence of that lan- 
guage in England for a long time after the Conquest. 
It is mentioned hy Gervase of Tilbury, a writer of the 
early part of the thirteenth century, that in his time the 
English nobility always sent their children to be brought 
up in France. The passages from Eobert of Gloucester 
at the close of that century, and from Robert Holcot in 
the beginning and Ralph Higden about the middle of 
the next, have been already given. 

It is also known, not only from the recorded names 
and accounts of the writers, but from many remains that 
have come down to us, that an abundant production of 
literature in the French language was carried on either 
by Englishmen or by foreigners resident at the English 
court for some centuries after the Conquest. In all 
light or popular hterature French was at first the only 
language employed ; it continued to predominate for 
some time after the English had begun to come into 
use ; nor, even after the latter had acquired the as- 
cendancy, did its foreign rival cease to be occasionally 
resorted to. It is evident that French must have been 
more familiar than English to a considerable section of 
the inhabitants of England down to the end of the 
fourteenth century. -2^ 

The declension and extinction of the French lan- 

* See, however, what has been advanced by Mr. Guest in 
opposition to or in qualification of this view, in his History of 
English Rhythms, ii. 427. He conceives that the French, or 



84 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOKY OF 

guage in England were probably precipitated by the 
strong anti-Gallican feeling engendered by the French 
wars of Edward III., which began a few years before 
the middle of the fourteenth century. 

The discontinuance of French as the medium for the 
instruction of boys in Latin is expressly noted by John 
de Trevisa, in a paragraph which he inserts in his 
translation of Higden's Chronicle after the passage 
recording the fact of the previous usage, to have taken 
place about that date, or, as he puts it, immediately 
after the first great plague, which was in the year 1349. 
The authors of the innovation, he says, were a grammar 
school-master, named John Cornwall, and his pupil, 
Richard Pencrich. Trevisa writes this account in the 
year 1385. 

Meanwhile in 1362, the 36th year of Edward III., 
it was ordered by act of parliament that all trials in 
the king's courts should henceforth be conducted in 
English. In the preamble of the act it is averred that 
the French tongue, in which pleas had heretofore been 
pleaded, was become much unknown in the realm, so 

Romance language as it was called, was in the twelfth and thir- 
teenth centuries *' a dead language, learnt only from books ; " and, 
while he allows that it " must have been more or less famihar to 
the scholar as well as to the courtier," he holds it to be clear that 
" it did not reach to the great body of the people," from " the 
many versions of Romance poems made for the lewed man,'' a 
phrase which, he observes, includes both lord and yeoman. But 
how are we to account for the existence of the Romance originals 
of those versions, and of a large body of Romance literature 
besides, which we have no reason to believe ever was translated, 
except upon the supposition that the French language was more 
familiar than the English to a large portion of the English read- 
ing public ? 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 85 

that the people who impleaded or were impleaded in 
the king's and other courts had no knowledge nor under- 
standing of what was said for them or against them by 
theii' sergeants and other pleaders. 

Yet this very statute is in French, as all statutes con- 
tinued to he for more than a century longer. The first 
in English is in the 1st year of Henry VII. (1485); 
ajid even that is also in French. It is only from 
1488-9, the 4th of Henry VII., that English alone is 
used. The proceedings of the House of Lords were 
recorded in French down to a still later date. Certain 
parliamentar}^ forms, indeed, are still in that language. 
French also continued to be the language in which 
the published reports of law cases were usually drawn 
up till the middle of the seventeenth century ; nor did 
its employment for that purpose altogether cease till 
some time after the commencement of the eighteenth. 

By the statute of 1362 pleas were ordered to be 
always entered and enrolled in Latin (instead of 
sometimes in Latin, sometimes in French, as had 
been heretofore the practice). This would seem to 
show that the statute was instigated more by spite 
against the French language than by affection for the 
English. 



86 



OUTLINES OF THE HISTOEY OF 



XVIII. In the course of the contest between the two 
languages the English had undergone a consi- 
derable alteration of its vocabulary by the re- 
ception of words from the French, many of which 
had probably displaced or rendered obsolete equi- 
valent terms of Saxon origin; so that, by the 
time it had come to be fully established and re- 
cognised, in the latter part of the fourteenth 
century, as the proper literary language of the 
country, it had been transformed from a purely 
Gothic into a partially Neo-Latin language. 

The French language in England was only an exotic, 
which, introduced by force, was for a time sustained, and 
even disseminated vritliin certain limits, by the same 
force wliicli had imported it, but could not, in the nature 
of things, continue to maintain an independent existence 
in the country after the originally foreign domination 
with which it was brought in had come to be completely 
nationalised. 

Yet in the same manner, and, perhaps, nearly in the 
same degree, in which the old Saxon political consti- 
tution of the country has been permanently modified by 
that which the Normans established in its stead, has the 
old language been affected and changed by intermixture 
with that of the Normans. 



It may be held to be now admitted on all hands that 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 87 

it is only in tlie vocabulaiy of the English language that 
any intrusion or direct action of the French is to be 
ti'aced. Such change as the grammar has undergone 
certainly has not been produced by the adoption of any 
part of the grammar of its rival, even if the subversion 
of its inflectional system, in which the change entirely 
consists, may have been in part occasioned by the in- 
direct influence of that foreign tongue. 

There has been considerable difference of opinion, 
however, in regard to the date at which the partial 
transformation of the vocabulary of the Saxon or Eng- 
lish by absorption from the French began to show itself. 
Tyrwhitt refers to the writings both of Eobert of Brunne 
and Robert of Gloucester as evidencing that this process 
had fairly commenced in the thhteenth centmy ; Mr. 
Guest, nevertheless, as we have seen (see ante, p. 6'2), 
has intimated his adherence to the old opinion, that 
" French did not mix with our language till the days of 
Chaucer," or till a centuiy after the time of Eobert of 
Gloucester. 

Tyrwhitt asks if it be credible that "a poet writing 
in English [as was Chaucer's case] upon the most 
familiar subjects w^ould stuff his compositions with 
French words and phrases," if such words and phrases 
had not been generally intelligible to his readers, that is 
to say, if they had not already taken their place in the 
common or national language ? " Or," it is added, " if 
he had been so very absurd, is it conceivable that he 
should have immediately become, not only the most 
admired, but also the most popular writer of his time 
and country?" 

Chaucer has nowhere evinced any special partiality 
for the French language. He derides (in his description 



88 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 

of the Prioress in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales) 
the French spoken in England ; and in his prose tract 
entitled The Testament of Love he speaks with contempt 
of such of his countrymen as still continued to '' speke 
their poysy mater " in that foreign tongue ; adding, 
** Let, then, clerkes endyten in Latyn, for they have the 
propertye in science and the knowledge in that facultye, 
and lette Frenchmen in their Frenche also endyte 
their queynt termes, for it is kyndly [natural] to theyr 
mouthes ; and let us shewe our fantasyes in such wordes 
as we learneden of our dames tonge," — that is, what we 
now call our mother tongue, the tongue we learn from 
our mothers. 

The proportion of words of French derivation in the 
English, not only of Chaucer, but of the generality of 
Chaucer's contemporaries, in that, for instance, of Man- 
devil and Wiclif, is far too large to be accounted for 
except on the hypothesis that the vocabulary of the one 
language had then been flowing into the other for a 
considerable time. 

It is probable that th*s process had been going on 
almost from the birth of the English language and of 
English literature, properly or distinctively so called, 
that is to say, from the middle of the thirteenth century. 
It was the natural consequence of the relative position 
of the two languages and the two literatures, — the one 
(the English) mainly the offspring and imitator of the 
other (the French), and seeking to make itself acceptable 
to the same community the most influential portion of 
which had so long patronised its predecessor. 

The English language, probably, would not have 
acquired the ascendancy so soon as it did if it had not 
thus assumed a partially French guise or character, and 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 89 

SO enabled itself the more easily to become a substitute 
for French, and to win its way with the most cultivated 
class of readers. 

It was, no doubt, principally through the medium of 
literary compositions that French words were at first 
introduced into the English language. Many of the 
earliest works written in English were translations, more 
or less free, from the French ; and the translator would 
in many cases have every temptation to retain an ex- 
pressive term in his original, rather than to beat his 
brains in attempting to find or to fabricate a vernacular 
equivalent. A French word introduced now and then 
would be an impediment to no reader, and would by 
many or most be regarded as rather ornamental. 

At the same time the intrusion of words formed from 
the French was, probably, facilitated by the broken- 
down or uncemented condition of the English language 
at this date, which disabled it from producing new terms, 
when wanted, out of its own resources as readily as the 
regular Saxon, with its more inflectional structure, might 
have done. 



90 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOEY OF 



XIX. Our modern standard English, in so far as it is 
of Saxon origin, as it is fundamentally and for 
much the greater part of its substance, appears 
to have grown out of a dialect formed in the 
Midland Counties by such an intermixture of the 
Northern and Southern dialects as rejected the 
more remarkable pecuharities of both. 

The question of the origin of standard English forms 
the subject of an interesting disquisition by Mr. Guest, 
which will be found in the History of English Bhythms, 
ii. 187-207. 

It is founded in part upon a passage (already referred 
to) in the Latin Chronicle of Ealpli Higden, written 
about or shortly before the middle of the fourteenth 
century, in which, after stating that the English had ori- 
ginally among them tln'ee different dialects, — southern, 
midland, and northern, — but that, having become 
mixed first with Danes, and afterwards with Normans, 
they had in many respects corrupted their own tongue, 
and now affected a sort of outlandish babble, Higden 
goes on : — " In the above threefold Saxon tongue, which 
has barely survived among a fev/ country people, the 
men of the east agree more in speech with those of the 
west — as being situated under the same quarter of the 
heavens — than the northern men with the southern. 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 91 

Hence it is that the Merciaus-''- or midland English — 
paitaking, as it were, the natui^e of the extremes — 
understand the adjoining dialects, the northern and the 
southern, better than those last understand each other. 
The whole speech of the Northumbrians, especially in 
Yorkshire, is so harsh and rude, that we southern men 
can hardly understand it." 

The countr}^ of the northern dialect, or dialects. Mr. 
Guest extends as far south as to the Thames. That 
the dialects spoken to the north of that river possessed 
a common character, which long distinguished them 
from the southern dialects, he thinks may be shown 
even at the present day. The inflections of the northern 
verb, hi particular, differ from those of the southern : — 
The pres. ind. was, m the southern, Icli liojj-e, Thou 
hop-est, He liop-eth, We, Ye, Hi liop-eth ; in the northern, 
I liop-es, Thou hop-es, He hop-es, We, Ye, Hi hop-es : the 
second per. sing. perf. ind. was, in the southern, Thou 
hoped- est ; in the northern. Thou hoped-es: the second 
per. sing. pres. imper. was, in the southern, Hop-eth 
ye ; in the northern, Hop-es ye : the pres. infin. was, 
in the southern. To hop-en; in the northern. To hop-e. 
In the northern inflections, Mr. Guest holds, we may 
detect those of a conjugation which is fully developed 
in the Swedish. Then, after noticing other peculiarities, 

* The name of Mercia, or the March, was given to that one 
~of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which bordered on the Welsh 
territory, and which in its greatest extent came to include all the 
middle of England, or (with the exception of Wales in the west, 
and East Angha in the east) the whole range of country between 
the Trent and the Eihhle in the north, and the Thames and the 
Bristol Avon in the south. 



92 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 

he proceeds : — ** It is a curious fact that both our uni- 
versities are situated close to the boundary line which 
separated the northern from the southern English ; 
and I cannot help thinking, that the jealousies of these 
two races were consulted in fixing upon the sites. The 
histories of Cambridge and Oxford are filled with their 
feuds ; and more than once has the king's authority 
been interposed, to prevent the northern men retiring, 
and forming within their own limits a university at 
Stamford or Northampton. The union of these two 
races at th^ university must have favoured the growth 
of any intermediate dialect ; and to such a dialect the 
circumstances of the country, during the ninth and 
tenth centuries, appear to have given birth. While the 
north was sinking beneath its own feuds and the 
ravacres of the Northman, the closest ties knit toojether 
the men of the midland and the southern counties ; and 
this fellowship seems to have led, among the former, to 
a certain modification of the northern dialect. The 
change seems to have been brought about, not so much 
by adopting the peculiarities of southern speech, as by 
giving greater prominence to such parts of the native 
dialect as were common to the south. The southern 
conjugations must, at all times, have been familiar (at 
least in dignified composition) to the natives of the 
northern counties, but other conjugations were po'pu- 
larly used, and in the gradual disuse of these, and other 
forms peculiar to the north, the change consisted." 

By these and other reasons Mr. Guest is led to the 
conclusion "that in the middle of the fourteenth century 
there were three great English dialects — the northern, 
the midland, and the southern;" and he thml^ "that, 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Ub 

even amid the multiplied varieties of the present day, 
these three divisions may yet he traced." The progress 
of the midland English in one direction was, he con- 
ceives, long opposed hy the deep and rapid stream of 
the Trent : " the new dialect seems to have spread over 
the plains of Staffordshire, and the rich flats of Lincoln, 
long hefore it penetrated the sister counties of Derhy 
and Nottingham." Two vigorous efforts were made to 
detain and preserve the northern dialect as it was re- 
treating northwards, and to fix it as a literary language : 
the first, in the thirteenth century, by the men of Lin- 
colnshire ; the second, in the fifteenth century, hy the 
men of Lothian. " But the convenience of a dialect 
essentially the same as the northern, and far more 
widely understood, its literary wealth, and latterly the 
patronage of the court, gave the midland English an 
ascendancy that gradually swept all rivalry hefore it." 
The southern dialect, it is added, kept its ground more 
firmly than the northern ; little more than two centuries 
having gone hy since it first began to give way before the 
midland dialect. 

Mr. Guest divides the midland dialect into six varie- 
ties ; and one of them, which he would term the Leices- 
tershire dialect, and which is described as " remarkable 
for its want of tone," has, he aJB&rms, " contributed, more 
than any of our [other] living dialects, to the formation 
of our present standard English." 

Dr. Latham {English Language, 555), holding that 
the parts where the purest English is most generally 
spoken are those between Huntingdon and Stamford, 
and agreeing with Mr. Guest so far as to think it nearly 
certain " that the dialect most closely allied to the 



94 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOKY OF 

dialect (or dialects) out of wbich tlie present literary 
language of England is developed is to be found either 
in Nortbamptonsbire or tbe neigbbouring counties," is 
inclined to look for it, not witb Mr. Guest, in Leices- 
tersbire, on tbe western side of tbat county, but ratber 
in Huntingdonsbire, on tbe eastern side. 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 95 



XX. The space from about the middle of the Fourteenth 
to the middle of the Sixteenth Century maybe styled 
the Period of Middle English ; and that designa- 
tion may be understood to express not only the 
position of the Period, but the transition of the 
language, in respect both of its vocabulary and of 
its grammar, from its earUest and rudest form to 
the state in which it now exists. To the com- 
mencement of this Period belong the writings of 
Chaucer, the Homer of our Poetry and the true 
Father of English Literature. 

As has been pointed out bj Mr. Guest {Eng. Rhythms, 
ii. 105), the characteristic .distinction of Old (or Early) 
English, as compared with Saxon or Semi-Saxon, is the 
employment of the one termination e, in the declension of 
nouns and the conjugation of verbs, to represent indis- 
criminately the three Anglo-Saxon vowel- endings, a, e, 
and u. In this way the Saxon nama, ends, and wiodu 
became in Early English nam-e, end-e, and icood-e, or 
u'ood-de. Now the distinction of Middle English, as 
compared with Early English, may be defined as being 
the tendency to drop this final ^ as a distinct syllable, 
and also to throw off altogether, in other respects as 
well as in this, the original inflectional system of the 
language. 

Chaucer is believed to have died, at the age of seventy- 



96 



OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 



two, in the year 1400. His writings may, therefore, b^ 
received as exemplifying the state of the language in 
the first half century of the present period. 

Even if we had no positive evidence on the subject, 
it would be impossible to believe that the language of a 
great popular poet could be other than substantially the 
language of his own age, — written, perhaps, with more 
regularity and refinement by him than by others, but 
certainly not with any absolute innovations or peculiari- 
ties either in the vocabulary or the grammar. In the 
case of Chaucer we have the most conclusive evidence 
that he wrote the common English of his day in the 
identity of his language in all essential respects with 
that of other writers who were his contemporaries. 

Moreover, by comparing him and his contemporaries 
with their predecessors and their followers, it is found 
that the changes undergone by the language exhibit 
only its natural progress under the operation of its 
inherent principles or tendencies. 



The English of the age of Chaucer, being the earlier 
part of the Middle or Transitional Period of the lan- 
guage, though reduced or restored to considerable regu- 
larity, has evidently not yet attained its final form and 
structure, but is still in a state of growth or movement 
under two tendencies which had been for some time 
pre^^ous at work in it, and had brought it to its actual 
condition : — the first, a tendency to drop more of the 
Anglo-Saxon ; the second, a tendency to assume more 
from the French. 

I. The tendency to retreat still farther from the 
Anglo-Saxon is evinced by the gradual loosening and 
falling off of such of the signs or vestiges of the old 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 97 

inflectional system as had not 3^et been quite got rid of, 
as well as by the constant disappearance of Saxon 
vocables. 

Thus : — the original termination of the infinitive, 
which had been already attenuated from an to en, is now 
often reduced to e; e. g. the Anglo-Saxon spaecan, or 
specan (to speak), which had already in the previous 
stage of the language become sp)ehen, is now frequently 
written (and, probably, still more frequently pronounced) 
speke (in two syllables). 

In the present indicative the singular is only slightly 
altered from -e, -ast, -ath, to -e, -est, -eth {lufige, lufast, 
lufath, becoming lov-e, lov-est, lov-eth) ; but the termina- 
tion of the plural persons, which had been originally ath, 
and had been first changed into eth, is now often further 
softened or shortened into en ; e. g. the Anglo-Saxon ice, 
ge, hi, lufiath, had become ive, ye, hi, or they loveth, or 
loven, Trevisa commonly has loveth; Chaucer and 
Mandevil, loven. In the second person plural of the 
imperative, the eth (which also had been originally ath) 
was sometimes shortened, not into en, but inta e, — loveth 
ye, or love ye.^ 

* The second person singular of the imperative is the verb in 
its elementary or most naked form, as in Anglo-Saxon. Thus ; — 

" Our host-e saw that he was dronken of al-e, 
And sayd, Abide, Eobin, my lev-e brother." 

Cant. Tales, 3131. 

" The Reeve answerd and said-e, Sti?}t thy clapp-e." 

Ibid. 3146. 

" Say forth thy tale, and tarry not the tim-e." 

Ibid. 3903. 

But both in this and in the other moods, as at present, the 

H 



yo OUTLINES OF THE HISTOKY OF 

The termination of the present participle, originally 
ende, has now, for the most part, passed into the merer 
rapidly pronounceable ing, though it is still sometimes 
found as ende or eiid, ande or and, ente or ent, ante or 
ajit. 

Finally, the termination e, both in the verb and in 
other parts of speech, even while it continued to be 
written, was beginning to be dropped in the pronuncia- 
tion ; and in some words it was occasionally omitted in 
writing. According to Mr. Guest {Eng. Uhytlims, i. 34), 
the word hire is always a monosyllable with Chaucer, 
whether it represents the Anglo-Saxon hire (her), oi 
heora (their) ; and the e, he adds, " was also lost in othei 
cases when it followed r, and, perhaps, when it foUowec 
other letters." In the first and third persons singula] 
of the preterite of verbs, again, which regularly terminatec 
in ede (the entire tense running I lovede, thou lovedest 
he lovede, ive loveden, ye loveden, they loveden), the « 
was occasionally omitted (thus, I loved, he loved, as a' 
present). 

It is admitted that in Anglo-Saxon the termination r 
made always a distinct syllable, as much as a or u. Anc'^ 
this appears to be the case also in the prosody of 
Chaucer, except only in a very few words, in which, as 
just observed, the e had by his time begun to be dropt 
in the pronunciation, although it was still retained in 

second person plural, with its proper pronoun, is commonly used * 
in a singular sense ; as : — 

" Now telleth ye, Sire Monk, if that ye conn-e, 
Somewhat to quiten with the Knight-es Tal-e." 

Cant. Tales, 3121. 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 99 

Wilting. The only other chxumstances in ^vllich it 
counts for nothing are when it is elided in consequence 
of the following word heginning with a vowel. Ed and 
es m like manner certainly were then in all cases pro- 
nounced as distinct syllables; thus, lov-es, lov-ed, 
lov-ed-est, lov-ed-en. 

But many words also were then wiitten with a final e 
which have now lost that termination. 

It follows, therefore, that a great many words at this 
stage of the language had a syllable more than the same 
words now have. In some cases the final e, which 
constituted the syllable in question, has disappeared 
only in the pronunciation ; in other cases it has 
disappeared entii'ely, not only in our speech but in 
our ^vlitulg. 

It does not seem to be disputed that Tyrwhitt has 
given a correct account of the origin of one class of 
these lost final ^'s. " With respect to words imported 
du'ectly from France," he observes, "it is certainly quite 
natural to suppose that for some time they retained their 
native pronunciation." Thus such a word as hoste 
would continue to be both written vith an e final and to 
be pronounced as a dissyllable, as it was in French, and 
as its modem representative, hole, still is, at least in 
French verse and in the more formal style of elocution. 
It is to be supposed that in the anglicised word the 
final e was first dropt in the pronunciation and then 
retrenched in the spelling. In other words, again, 
boiTowed from the French, the e, though dropt in the 
pronunciation, has been retained in the spelling, usually 
with the view of indicating a particular way of sounding 
a preceding vowel or consonant ; as hi large, where it 
softens the g, or in. face, where it both softens the c and 
gives its name sound to the a. 



100 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 

*' We have not, indeed," Tyrwhitt proceeds to say, 
'* SO clear a proof of the original pronunciation of the 
Saxon part of our language ; but we know, from general 
observation, that all changes of pronunciation are usually 
made by small degrees ; and, therefore, when w^e find 
that a great number of those words which in Chaucer's 
time ended in e originally ended in a, we may reason- 
ably presume that our ancestors first passed from the 
broader sound of a to the thinner sound of e feminine, 
and not at once from a to e mute. Besides, if the final 
e in such w^ords was not pronounced, why was it added ? 
From the time that it has confessedly ceased to be pro- 
nounced, it has been gradually omitted in them, except 
w^here it may be supposed of use to lengthen or soften 
the preceding syllable, — as in ho'pe, name, &c. But, 
according to the ancient orthography, it terminates 
many words of Saxon original where it cannot have been 
added for any such purpose, as lierte, childe, olde, ivilde, 
&c. In these, therefore, we must suppose that it was 
pronounced as an e feminine, and made part of a second 
syllable ; and so, by a parity of reason, in all others in 
w^hich, as in these, it appears to have been substituted 
for the Saxon a." In a note he adds : — *' In most of 
the words in which the final e has been omitted its use 
in lengthening or softening the preceding syllable has 
been supplied by an alteration in the orthography of 
that syllable. Thus, in grete, mete, stele, rede, dere, in 
which the first e was originally long, as closing a syllable, 
it has, since they have been pronounced as monosyllables, 
been changed either into ea, as in great, meat, steal, 
read, dear, or into ee, as in greet, meet, steel, reed, deer. 
In like manner, the o in bote, fole, done, gode, mone, has 
been changed either into oa, as in boat, foal, or into oo, 
as in door, good, moon,'' 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 101 

It is only a part even of this view of tlie origin of the 
e final in words of Saxon derivation that has been con- 
troverted. It is not denied that Tyrwhitt is right in 
regard to such words as in their original Saxon form 
ended either in e or in some other vowel which was 
equally represented by e in Early and Middle English. 
The only dispute is about such words as lierte, bote, 
gode, &c., referred to by Tyrwhitt in the two last 
sentences of the passage above quoted, and in the an- 
nexed note. 

The theory of the late Mr. Price is that the e in such 
cases was an addition made by the Norman scribes, or 
disciples of the Norman school of writing, for the pm^- 
pose of marking or indicating according to their principle 
of orthogi'aphy that elongation of the preceding vowel 
which in the Anglo-Saxon system was denoted by an 
accentual mark. Thus, for example, what in Anglo- 
Saxon orthography was god was in Norman gode ; what 
in the former was lif, was in the latter life; "and 
hence," concludes Mr. Price, "the majority of those ^'s 
mute upon which Mr. Tyrwhitt has expended so much 
unfounded speculation." -i^ Tyrwhitt can hardly be said 
to have expended any speculation upon the particular 
class of words which Mr. Price thus seeks to explain. 

The question has been since examined more at length 
by Mr. Guest. It was, according to Mr. Guest, a funda- 
mental rule of Anglo-Saxon orthogi'aphy to double the 
final consonant in an accented syllable when the vowel 
was a short one, that is, when it had what has been 
caUed the shut sound; hence it came to be imagined 

* See Ms edition of Warton's History of English Poetry y 
Preface (114) , and vol. i. ^. cii. 



102 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 

that such a vowel should he followed and denoted hy the 
doubling of the consonant, w^hether the syllable was 
accented or no. This, as has been stated above, appears 
to have been the principle which Ormin followed, only 
regulating his spelling in conformity with it more uni- 
formly or precisely than any other writer has done. 
But the old rule, Mr. Guest conceives, also gave rise to 
another practice which has had a greater effect in 
deranging the orthography of the language. As the 
doubling of the consonant indicated a short or shut 
vowel sound, it followed that a single consonant would 
be the mark of the long, or what has been called the 
name sound ; in such words, for instance, as mone (the 
moon), time (time), name (name), that would be the 
sound of the vowel in the fii^t syllable. *' Now, in the 
Anglo-Saxon," the statement proceeds, ** there was a 
great number of words which had, as it were, two forms ; 
one ending in a consonant, the other in a vowel. In 
the time of Chaucer, all the different vowel-endings 
were represented by the e final; and so great is the 
number of words which this writer uses sometimes as 
monosyllables, and sometimes as dissyllables with the 
addition of the e, that he has been accused of adding to 
the number of his syllables whenever it suited the 
convenience of his rhythm. In his works we find hert 
and lierte, bed and hedde, erth and erthe, &c. In the 
Anglo-Saxon we find corresponding duplicates, the 
additional syllable giving to the noun in almost every 
case a new declension, and in most a new gender. In 
some few cases the final e had become mute even before 
the time of Chaucer; and it was wholly lost in the 
period which elapsed between his death and the accession 
of the Tudors. Still, however, it held its ground in our 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 103 

manuscripts, and iwe (our), rose (a rose), Szc, though 
pronounced as monosyllahles, were still -syritten accord- 
ing to the old spelhng. Hence, it came gradually to be 
considered as a rule that, -^hen a syllable ended in a 
single consonant and mute e, the vowel was long." Mr. 
Guest has no doubt whatever that this is the origin of 
the very peculiar mode of indicating the long vowel 
which prevails m English orthogi'aphy. To Mr. Price's 
notion, that the mode of spelling in question was the 
work of the Xormans, he objects that the final e, which 
Mr. Price conceives to have been annexed merely to 
denote the long vowel, or to be a substitute for the 
Anglo-Saxon accent, was not mute in Xorman French. 
{Eng. Pihytlims, i. 109.) 

It is not quite clear whether in Mr. Guest's ^dew 
there are any cases in which the e is supposed to have 
had nothing corresponding to it in the Anglo-Saxon 
word, and to have been affixed merely to denote that 
the preceding vowel had the long or name sound after 
it had come, in the way that has been explained, to 
be a received rule of pronunciation that that was the 
sound to be borne by a vowel whenever it was followed 
by a single consonant and an e. Mr. Price appears to 
have considered the final e generally to have originated 
in this way ; and in that notion he probably held it a 
mistake to imagine that it had ever been pronounced as 
a distinct syllable.^ 

* Mr. Price's views were to have been more fully exiDlained in 
a volume which was announced in his edition of Warton as 
shortly to be pubhshed, but which has never apx^eared, entitled 
*' Illustrations of Warton's History of Enghsh Poetry ; contain- 
ing .... An Examination of Mr. T}-i'whitt's Essay on the 
Language and Versification of Chaucer," &c. 



104 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOKY OF 

One result, Mr. Guest goes on to observe, of this 
employment of the final e mute to mdicate a long vowel 
was to save many of our monosyllables from the dupli- 
cation of the final consonant. The mere absence of the 
e would be held to imply that the vowel had its short 
or shut sound. Having the name sound in white, pate, 
and rote, it would have the shut sound in ivhit, pat, and 
rot, 

Mr. Guest holds that there have been four systems 
employed at different periods to mark the quantity (in 
reference at least to the more recent stages of the 
language we ought rather to say the quality) of our 
English vowels. 1. In Anglo-Saxon the long time was 
properly marked by the acute accent : thus, god (good) 
was distinguished from God (God). 2. Next it came to 
be marked in many instances by the doubling of the 
vowel : thus god was written good (perhaps originally 
pronounced as we now pronounce goad). 3. The long 
or name sound was indicated simply by leaving the 
following consonant single : thus, Ormin probably in- 
tended his shep to be sounded sheep. 4.' The same effect 
was produced by the mute e. And our modem practice, 
Mr. Guest thinks, is to a certain extent a combination, 
or rather a confusion, of the three last systems. (Eng. 
Rhythms, i. 110.) 

It is never to be forgotten, in the consideration of this 
subject, that every one of our English vowel letters 
represents, in our established system of orthography, not 
only different quantities of the same sound, but totally 
different sounds. After the explanations we have quoted, 
Mr. Guest proceeds : — " We have hitherto denominated 
certain vowels long and short, as though we considered 
the only difference between them to be their time ; as, 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 105 

though, for instance, the vowel in 7neet differed from that 
in 7net only in its being longer. The truth is, they are 
of widely different quality. The spelling of many words 
has remained unchanged for a period during which we 
have the strongest evidence of a great change in our 
pronunciation. When the orthography of the words 
meet and met was settled, the vowels in all probability 
differed only in respect of time ; but they have now been 
changing for some centuries, till they have nothing in 
common between them but a similarity in their spell- 
ing." 

He then lays it down, that in the present state of the 
language we have five vowel sounds, each of which fur- . 
nishes us with two vowels, — that is to say, that we have 
five vowel sounds, which are commonly represented in 
writing by one letter or combination of letters when long, 
and by another when short. Thus, it is affirmed, we have 
really the same sounds, differing only in length, not 
only in the first syllables oi father smdi fatJiom ^- (where 

* In a note {Eng. Bhythms, i. 313) Mr. Guest contends that 
the only difference between the sounds of a in father and ar in 
farther, is a difference of length, and that therefore there is one 
vowel sound in our language which furnishes us with three 
vowels, of three different degrees of length. He even denies 
that the r is ever pronounced at the end of a syllable, unless the 
following syllable open with a vowel. According to this doctrine, 
not only ought Lunar time to be undistinguishable in pronuncia- 
tion from Luna time, and the first syllable of artizan to be 
pronounced exactly like the interjection ah, and the Arctic 
Circle to be called the Ahctic Circle (as, indeed, it is by some 
persons who labour under a defect of articulation) ; but we must 
call a drawer a draw (as is common with uneducated Londoners, 
although they can pronounce the r only too well in other cases), 
and make no distinction between hair and hay, between beer 
and bee, between lyre and lie, between door and doe, between ^wr*? 



10.6 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 

the same letter is employed), but in the first syllables of 
Mary and merry, in peel and pill^ in pall and poll, and 
in pool and pull. But it may be questioned if the sound 
of i in pill be exactly the same in quality or kind, any 
more than in length, with that of the ee in peel ; leek is 
the same sound with leak (unless it may be as to quan- 
tity), but lick hardly is ; and the sound of o in polL^ 
according to universal usage, is certainly quite different 
from that of a in pall. The latter sound, howeyer, is 
the same (except as to length) with that of the o in doll, 
extol, mollify, and other words. Mr. Guest adds : — 
'* The vowels o and u, as they occur in 7iote and nut, 
stand alone, as do also the several diphthongs." The 
meaning of this is not very clear. The vowel sound in 
note is exactly the same (unless there be a difference in 
quantity) ^ith that in jooll and that in boat, and that in 

and peiv, between a and ah and are ; and instead of parsley, and 
mercy, and stirred, and abhorred, say passly, and messy, and stid 
(which, according to another of Mr. Guest's principles, would be 
only a shorter pronunciation of steed), and ahhawed, as children 
do in beginning to speak. Mr. Guest, indeed, distinctly declares, 
that he believes the words hum, curb, hurt, lurk, " in ordinary 
speech," to differ from bun, cub, hut, luck, only in the greater 
length of the vowel sound. By " ordinary speech " here must be 
meant, apparently, correct speech. But the fact is, that it is 
quite impossible by any mere prolongation of the vowel to convert 
bun into burn. The r in this and other cases is very slightly pro- 
nounced ; but that it is pronounced is sufficiently proved, were it 
only by the established and universally followed usage in rhymed 
verse, in which it would be as outrageous a solecism to make 
hurt, for instance, metre to but, as to join it in the same manner 
to bunt, or to bust, or to adult. 

* Unless, indeed, it be Poll — the abridged form of Polly, 
sometimes used for a parrot — that is meant; which, however, can 
hardly be. 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 107 

crou\ and that in foe, and that in dough, and that in ivo ; 
so that, instead of standing alone, the vowel o in note 
has at least half-a-dozen equivalents. And several of 
the diphthongal sounds are also variously represented. 

But what has chiefly pei-plexed the treatment of this 
subject, is the assumption that sounds which are repre- 
sented by the same letter are always either the same or 
differ only in quantity. The fact is, that in some cases 
they are totally different in kind. Even the a in fan, 
the a in batJi, and the a in icas, are, strictly speaking, all 
distinguishable in quality, though perhaps nearly related, 
and having a tendency to pass into one another ; the 
^ame may be said of the o in note, and the o in hog 
i^ which, again, is the same sound in quality or kind with 
that of the a in icas), and perhaps of the u in but, and 
the II in full (the same essentially with the oo in good\ 
and the u in tune (which is otherwise represented by eiv, 
as in j^u"; by ue, as in due ; by eau, as in beauty ; and it 
may be, in other ways). But the soimd of a in pane 
(the same, only longer, with that of ^ in ^j^??) is totally 
different from the other sounds of a in pan, and a in 
paivn ; so is the sound of 6 in men from its sound in me 
(the former, as just stated, being the same, except as to 
length, with one of the sounds of a; the latter, sjo,- 
cording to Mr. Guest, with one of those of i). So, 
finally, is the sound of i in pin, from its sound in 7:iin^. 
In all these cases the difference is one not merely of 
length, or not of length at all, but of quality or kind ; 
and the two soimds are fully as distinct, or as wide 
apart, as any two vowel sounds in the language. 

The English way of reading Latin is to read it exactly 
as Enghsh is read. For instance, the long a in orator, 
being the accented syllable (as the penult always is when 



108 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOEY OF 

long), is sounded like the a in pane ; but the equally 
long a in oratoris, not having the accent upon it, is 
sounded like the a in pan. The vowel is treated in the 
two words exactly as it is in the two English words 
oration and oratory. The effect of this system is that in 
all accented syllables ending in a vowel (although by no 
means in other circumstances), a long a is pronounced 
like the a in pane, a long e like the e in me, and a long 
i like the i in pine ; while a short a takes commonly the 
sound of a in pan, a short e that of e in net, and a short 
z that of i in J9^y^. 

English writers upon the subject of pronunciation 
have thus been very generally led to assume that the 
two sounds, connected in these several cases by being 
represented by the same letter, are similarly connected 
as corresponding long and short soimds in nature. There 
is scarcely a disquisition on the subject to be found in 
the language which is not more or less tainted with this 
fallacy. Even where it is perceived and admitted that 
the two sounds differ in kind, or, in other words, that 
they are quite distinct somids, a notion or half notion 
is still apt to lurk, both in the nomenclature and in the 
reasoning, that the one is natmrally the short sound of 
the other. Yet such a notion, besides being wholly 
gratuitous, involves among others the following leading 
absurdities : — 1. That the e in pen is the short sound 
at once of e and of a ; 2. That the i in pin is the short 
sound at once of i and (at least upon Mr. Guest's scheme) 
of ^ ; 3. That, consequently, the a in pan, the e in 
pen, and the i in pin, all represent precisely the same 
sound. 

The fact is, that, in so far as respects mere length, the 
sounds in question can hardly be characterised as dis- 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 109 

tinguishable into two sets. At any rate, a syllable, the 
vowel sound in which is w^hat is called the short a, e, or i, 
may certainly be made to occupy, and often does occupy, as 
much time in the enunciation as one in which the vowel 
sound is what is called the long a, e, or i. Every classical 
scholar, indeed, is familiar with one form of this fact, in 
the prolongation of a short vowel in the Greek and Latin 
by what is called position, or the circumstance of its be- 
ing followed by two consonants. Even in these ancient 
languages, however, it is worth noting that, while posi- 
tion makes a short vowel long, or, as we are told, doubles 
its time, it is not held, at least in prosodical effect, to 
make a long vowel either twice as long, or any longer at 
all. But in English, two things are remarkable in con- 
nexion with this matter : — 1. That, upon any definition 
or understanding of the terms long and short that can be 
proposed, what is called a short vowel, or the syllable in 
which it stands, may be long without position; 2. That 
such a vowel or syllable may be short with or notwith- 
standing position. 

Here again, however, English scholars have almost 
universally been blinded to the plainest facts in their 
own language by their classical preconceptions. Because 
a vowel followed by two consonants is long in Greek and 
Latin, it has been commonly assumed that it is always 
long in a similar position in English too. And this 
unfounded notion has been productive of the greater 
confusion, inasmuch as it runs directly counter to the 
other prejudice just adverted to, which holds the sound 
that a vowel commonly has in this situation to be short. 
Thus, for example, while the monosyllable %dn is ad- 
mitted to be short, the same combination of letters, 



110 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 

retaining precisely the same sound, when it comes to 
form the first syllable of the word winter, is half regarded 
as long ; and that although it is hardly pretended that 
any more time is taken to pronounce it in the one case 
than in the other. 

In tinith, however the matter may stand in Latin, in 
English some of the syllables that would be accounted 
long under the rule of position are among the slightest 
and shortest in the language ; such, for instance, are the 
conjunction and, and the termination ing of the present 
participle. In regard to this point there can be no 
doubt that the pronunciation of the one language is 
constructed upon a different principle from that of the 
other. Whatever may be the true nature of the dis- 
tinction between what are denominated long and short 
syllables, which is unquestionably the basis of Latin 
prosody and Latin verse, it is certain that a vowel 
standing in position, and the syllable containing that 
vowel, are unifoimly ranked with and treated as belong- 
ing prosodically to one of the two classes into which 
vowels and syllables are divided, — namely, to that which 
is described as long. It is possible that by the terms 
long and sJwrt the ancient grammarians may have meant 
nothing more than accented and unaccented. All that 
is necessary to be affirmed here is, that accent is, at 
any rate, the sole principle of Enghsh prosody and of 
English verse. And in English a syllable of which 
the vowel is in position is by no means necessarily an 
accented syllable, or one having prosodically the force of 
such. 

Mr. Guest believes that the e final in Chaucer and 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Ill 

other \yriters of the same age is sometimes the Anglo- 
Saxon e of inflection. Thus, in the opening couplet of 
the Canterhury Tales, — 

" Whanne that Apiil Tvith his shoures sote 
The drought of March had perced to the rote," 

he holds the e of sote to be the sign of the plural, and 
the e of rote to be most probably the sign of the dative 
singular ; the common form of the Anglo-Saxon word for 
root being rot. Again, he conceives that in the following 
verse, 

" Hire gretest othe n'as hut by Seint Lo}-," 

othe represents the Anglo-Saxon genitive plural atha; so 
that hire gretest othe means her greatest of oaths. In 
support of this intei-pretation he adduces from the Geste 
of King Horn the expression " Pdche menne sones " 
(that is, sons of rich men) ; from Fiers Plowman, that 
of " poure menne cotes " [i^oor mens cots) ; and from 
Gower's Confessio Amantis, that of " her horse knave " 
(their horses' groom)."^- Moreover, he looks upon the 
final e of the adjective as being not only the sign of the 
plural (as in shoures sote), and the mark of what is called 
the definite declension, or the form which the adjective 
takes after the, or this, or that, or a possessive pronoun 
(as in the gret-e see, and this sik-e man, and hire ivhii-e 
voluper-e, that is, her ivhite cap), but the affixed e which 
in Anglo-Saxon converted an adjective into an adverb. 
Thus, in the line from the Clerkes Tale, in the Canter- 
hury Tales, 

" Aud in a cloth of gold that bright-e shone," 
* Eng, Rhythms, i. 30-33. 



113 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOEY OF 

he regards hright-e as representing, not our present 
adjective bright; hut our adverb brightly. In the super- 
lative, however, he affirms, it is not the adverb, but the 
adjective, that takes the e ; in other words, that brightest 
is brighteste, and that brightliest is brightest.^ 



The full account, then, of that most remarkable among 
the peculiarities which distinguish the English of Chaucer 
from that of the present day, the e terminating so many 
of his words, and always forming a syllable, which has 
now disappeared altogether from the pronunciation, and 
in great part from the spelling, of the language, may be 
comprised in the five following propositions : — 

1. In words borrowed from the French it is, as 
pointed out by Tyrwhitt, the e feminine of that lan- 
guage, still universally retained both in French ortho- 
graphy and French prosody, though in English it has 
ceased to be pronounced, and only continues to be writ- 
ten where its presence is necessary to indicate the sound 
of a preceding vowel or consonant. 

2. In nouns of Anglo-Saxon origin it is, in many 
cases, as also pointed out by Tyrwhitt, the substitute 
for, or remnant of, the Anglo-Saxon nominative singular 
termination (which was either e, or a, or u). 

♦ JEng, Rhythms, i. 29. The example that Mr. Guest gives 
of this last canon is the following line in the Prologue to the 
Canterbury Tales: — 

" And fro the time that hejlrste began." 
And so, indeed, the line is printed by Tyrwhitt. But it is e\i- 
dent that, according to the canon, ^rs^^ ought to he first. And 
that amendment is also required by the prosody, if, as is believed 
to be the case, the final e in Chaucer always (except in hire, 
and, it may be, two or three other words) makes a distinct 
syllable when the following word begins -with a consonant. 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 113 

3. In other Anglo- Saxon nouns, according to Mr. 
Guest, it is the e of the Anglo-Saxon dative singular, or 
genitive plural, or nominative plural in adjectives, or 
the sign of the definite form of the adjective, or of the 
adverb as distinguished from the adjective, or of the 
superlative of the adjective as distinguished from the 
superlative of the adverb. 

4. In the verb, as pointed out by Tyrwhitt, it is the 
termination, in the stage at which the language had 
anived in the decay of the Anglo- Saxon grammatical 
system, of the first person singular of the present indi- 
cative and the fii'st and third persons singular of the 
perfect, and of one form of the second person plural of 
the imperative, and one form of the infinitive. 

5. In many Tvords of Anglo-Saxon derivation, howso- 
ever it may have originated — whether from some Anglo- 
Saxon form, or, as Mr. Price conceives, merely in an 
orthographical expedient — it probably gave the name 
soimd to a preceding vowel, or served to indicate that it 
had such sound ; being itself, however, at the same 
time a distinct syllable in this as well as in all other 
cases. 

The other piincipal peculiarities that distinguish the 
gi'ammar of Chaucer's English from that of the English 
of the present day are the following : — 

The substantive verb to hen (our to be) was inflected 
in the singular of the present indicative as it still is ; 
but the forai throughout the plm^al was aren or ben. So 
in the imperfect the plural form was weren. 

Our to have was to haven, or to han, which in the 
present was inflected by have, havest or hast, haveth or 
hath for the smgular, and by haven or han for the 

I 



H! 



114 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOKY OF 

plural ; and in the imperfect by liadde, haddest, hadde 
for the singular, and hadden for the plural. 

They then said slial in the singular, but shidlen in 
the plural, of the present; shulde in the singular, and 
shidden in the plural, of the imperfect. 

In the present they said ivil or wol in the singular, 
willen or wollen in the plural ; in the imperfect, wolde in 
the singular, ivolden in the plural. 

In the present, they said can or con in the singular, 
and connen in the plural ; in the imperfect, coude in the 
singular, and couden in the plural. Our established 
spelling of coidd with an I has arisen from its being 
assumed by mistake that its original form ^Yas similar 
to those of should and ivoidd. 

May then made in the present may or moiv in the 
singular, and movjen in the plural ; in the imperfect, 
mouglite or mighte in the singular, moughten or mighten 
in the plural. 

The first personal pronoun was generally I, as at 
present, but sometimes Ic ; in the plural of the pronoun 
of the second person ye was always used for the nomi- 
native, you for the accusative ; our they was sometimes 
hi ; them was commonly hem, and their was commonly 
hire, which (pronounced in all its senses as a mono- 
syllable) was also the form both for the adjective pronoun 
her and for the accusative of the personal pronoun she. 

11. The tendency of the English of the age of 
Chaucer to approximate still more to the French is 
indicated by the continued adoption of new words of 
French extraction, often in substitution for Saxon ones ; 
and this process goes on, for the most part at an ac- 
celerating rate, to about the end of the fifteenth century. 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 115 

No additional words were now borrowed or revived 
from the Anglo-Saxon. 

Of the words used by Chaucer and the other writers 
of that time which have now become obsolete, some 
indeed are French, but the greater number are Saxon. 
This fact, while it indicates the tendency of the lan- 
guage, or of its vocabulary, goes also to corroborate the 
probability that Chaucer, in the extent to which he 
employed words of French origin, only followed, and 
did not by any means go beyond, the demand of the 
time, and the natural movement of the language. 

Out of the practice of borrowing words from the 
French there grew another of fabricating similar words 
directly from the Latin, the great source of the French. 
In this way many words of Latin formation found their 
way into the English which the French had never pos- 
sessed, but which were all constructed nevertheless upon 
the model of those that had been received through the 
medium of that language. Thus, for example, every 
such word formed from a Latin substantive in tlo was 
made to end in tion, and every one formed from a Latin 
substantive in itas in ity (after the French ite.) 

These are the aureate terms, their pedantic and exces- 
sive, employment of which Campbell {Essay on English 
Poetry, xlviii.) objects in particular against the Scottish 
versifiers of the fifteenth century, the generality of 
whom, he obseiwes, " when they meant to be most elo- 
quent, tore up words from the Latin, which never took 
root in the language, like children making a mock 
garden ^ith flowers and branches stuck in the ground, 
which speedily mther." 

But, although many of the words thus transplanted 
from the French and Latin never effected a cohesion 



116 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 

with the soil of the language, and some may perhaps 
never have been used except by the writer who intro- 
duced them, many took firm root, and they now consti- 
tute a large and indispensable portion of our national 
speech. Among them are all our substantives ending 
in tion and sion ; all those in ity ; all in ance and ancy, 
ence and ency, with their connected adjectives in ant and 
ent; most of those in ment (for some are hybrids, made 
up of this Latin termination annexed to a Saxon root) ; 
all in tor, tory, and ure ; all adjectives in arz/ and oi^y, 
in ic and iced, in ive, He, and ible, and most of those in 
able ; and all verbs in ate, act, ect, ict, and fy ; besides 
various smaller classes of words. 

Dr. Latham (English Language, 3d edit., 101), de- 
scribes what he designates the Latin of the Third 
Period, or that which was introduced between the Nor- 
man Conquest and the revival of literature (which for 
England may be understood to mean the beginning of 
the sixteenth century), as having " chiefly originated with 
the monks, in the universities, and, to a certain extent, 
in the courts of law." The fact is, that most of the 
words of Latin or French derivation, which found their 
way into the language in this interval, were introduced 
by the authors of the most popular literature of the 
day. Perhaps it would be better not to distinguish 
this Latin of the Third Period from what Dr. Latham 
calls the Latin of the Fourth Period, or that introduced 
between the revival of literature and the present time, 
but to regard the latter as only a continuation of the 
former. Up to about the commencement of the sixteenth 
century French and Latin may be said to have flowed 
into the language in a stream, or to have been drunk 
up by it as if it were athirst ; but about that date the 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 117 

point of saturation ^vould seem to have been readied, or 
the appetite of absorption to have been quenched ; it 
has since received only single words, as occasion arose. 

The mn'ipe or unconsolidated condition of the lan- 
guage, more especially at the commencement of the 
period of Middle English, or of its passage from Early 
English to Modem English, is indicated by the fluc- 
tuating accentuation of many of the words it was then 
appropriating from the French. Chaucer has, for in- 
stance, in one place virtue, in another virtue ; in one 
place nature, in another nature; in one place langdge, 
in another Idngage ; the first of the two modes of ac- 
centuation in each case being the French, the second 
the English one. For some time probably the former 
would be the more prevalent ; but ultimately all these 
imported words adopted the English accentuation, and 
entirely lost their native one ; thus showing that the 
predominant genius of the language in its very music, 
as well as in its grammar, was still English. 

Latin, either in its original state, or transformed into 
French, is the only foreign element mth which the 
Gothic basis of our language has combined to any large 
extent. 

In modern times, it is true, a vast number of scien- 
tific and technical terms have been fabricated from the 
Greek ; and this is the only manufacture of new Eng- 
lish words upon a considerable scale that still goes on. 
But such words do not belong to the flesh and blood of 
the language ; they may be styled its non-natural part, 
or an artificial appendage to it ; they stand in the same 
relation to its proper substance in which the tools that 
a man works with stand to his living person. 



118 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY, &C. 



XXI. We may call the First Century after the Norman 
Conquest the Infancy of the English Language 
(as distinct from Saxon); the Second its Child- 
hood ; the Tliird its Boyhood ; the Fourth and 
Fifth its Youth, or Adolescence ; and the time 
that has since elapsed its Manhood. Its Infancy 
and Childhood will thus correspond with what 
has before been designated the Period of Saxon 
and Semi-Saxon ; its Boyhood with that of Early 
English ; its Youth with that of Middle Enghsh ; 
its Manhood with that of Modern Enghsh. 

The entire history that has been gone over may be 
exhibited in a tabular form as follows : — ^ 

* The dates in the Table are accommodated to the Kings* 
reigns ; but the Peiiods and Ages may be most conveniently 
considered as extending from about the middle of one century 
to the middle of another, and as therefore consisting in each 
case of one or more centuries. 





X 


'^ i 


aj 


M 


. 




.. ?H 




^ 






^ C3 


O c3 


'^ <:^ 


03 


o 


02 


^ o 


C o 


O o 


.. 0) 


o 


< 


,C3 00 
^ 00 


^5- 

s- 






a 

c3 




1— 1 


pqrH 


^ 


E£) 


-rf 








o 


s! 


i^ 




>> 


i 

1 




;z; ? tH* 

^ - ^ 

CO r. ^=H 


11 


1 


fl 
§ 

iS 


1 

o 

o 


^ r^ 


^ 


03 


M 


32 


f§ 


a 


fl 


su 


fl 




m 


M 


M 


H-i 


M 




-n 


c^ 


t- 


GO 






o 


t- 


t- 


O 






1— 1 


c^ 


CO 


o 




• 


1—1 


1— 1 


^ 


I— i 




? 


ci 


4 


Jt 


^ 


GO 


<j 


o 


o 


t^ 


t- 




ft 


o - 


1—1 


C^ 




O 


r-^ 


1— 1 


rH 


^H 


—1 




q 












< 
















HH 












1— 1 












M 


1— 1 












> 










cS 


^ . M* 






M 




^ 








^ 

s 

o 


o 




o 


02 




^ M 


M 
M 


Eichard II. 
Henry V. 
rd IV. Edw 
llichard III 
VII. Henr 
Edward VI. 
Mary. 


o 


1 


g M CO 












o 




• 03 >, 






1 


S 


M 

1 
















CO 








a 


^ 


4 








!^ 


o 


s 




• 




h3 03 


^ zr> 


^ 


o 


s ^ 




.5 § 














5-H 


9 


Ph 




b o 


G 00 


Q 




M O 




^ r-i 


L^ M 


O 








< 


^ 


m 




O) 




M 


l-H 

r-! 


> 




'~^- 




i— 1 


h- 1 


M 



120 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOKY, &C. 

But, of course, as in the case of tlie human being to 
whom it has been compared, the language was making 
progress during or within each of the stages into which 
its history has been divided as much as in passing from 
one to another of them. 



ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 



I. Saxon and Semi-Saxon Period ; A.D. 1066-1250. 

1. From the latter 2>07'tion of the Saxon Chronicle : — 
about 1100. 

A.D. 1087. — . . . Dhissum thus gedone, se cyug 
WiUelm cearde ongean to Normandige. . . He swealt 
on Normandige on thone nextan daeg aefter natiuitas 
See Marie ; and man begyrgede hine on Catbum aet See 
[Sci?] Stepbanes mjnstre. . . Gif bwa gewibiiged to 
gewitane bu gedon man be was, odbdbe hmlcne 
wurdbseipe be baefde, odbdbe liu fela lande be waere 
blaford, tbonne wille we be him a\Yritan swa swa we 
hine ageaton; we him onlocodan, and odbre bwile on 
his hii'ede wanedon. . . He saette mvcel deorfridb, — 
and he laegde laga thaer widh ; — thaet [swa ?] bwa swa 
sloge beort odbdbe hinde — thaet hine man sceold blen- 
dian (blinde ?). (Swa ?) he forbead tha heoitas, — swylce 
eac tha bai^as. — Swa s\^ddbe he lufode tha beodeor — 
swylce he waere beora faeder. — Eac he saette be tham 
haran — thaet hi mosten freo fai^an. — His rice men hit 



122 ILLUSTEATIYE SPECIMENS. 

maendon, — and tlia earme men hit beceorodan ; — ac he 
waes swa stidh — thaet he ne rohte heora eallra nidh. 

[This thus done, the King William turned again to Normandy. 
. . . He died in Normandy on the next day after (the) nati- 
vity of St. Mary {Nativitas SanctcE MaricB) ; and man (Ger. 
man^ Fr. on, anciently homme) buried him in Caen, at St. 
Stephen's minster. . . If any may wish to know how to do man 
(what kind of man) he was, or what worship he had, or of how 
many lands he was lord, then will we by (in regard to) him 
write so as we him knew : we him beheld, and other while in his 
household wonned (dwelt) . . . He set much deer free-ground 
(he made many deer-parks), — and he laid (down) laws therewith; 
— that whoso slew hare or hind — that him man should blind. — As 
he forbade (to slay) the harts, — so also the boars. — So much he 
loved the high-deer — as he were then- father. — Also he set by 
(appointed regarding) the hares — ^that they must free fare. — His 
rich men it moaned, — and the poor men it lamented ; — but he 
was so stem, — ^that he recked not the hatred of them all.] 

The latter part of this passage is probably in rhyme, though 
that is not indicated in the MSS. Dr. Ingram {Saxon Chronicle, 
with an English Translation, 4to. Lond. 1823) has proposed the 
division of the lines which is here shown, including the substitu- 
tion of hlinde for hlendian in the fourth line. Apparently, the 
swa which should have cmomenced the fifth line has got by 
mistake into the third. Dr. Ingram reads, " And he forbead." 

The element here printed dh is to be sounded as the th in this. 
It is represented in the Saxon MSS., and in the common Saxon 
printing, by one character ; as the th heard in thin is by another. 
But there is by no means a perfect correspondence, as to this 
matter, between the old language and our present English; nor, 
indeed, are the two characters distinguished with any uniformity 
of usage in the Saxon MSS. 



ILLUSTEATIVE SPECIMENS. 123 



2. The Coynmencement of Layamon's Brut, according to 
the oldest of the tivo Versions, MS. Cot. Calig. A. ix, : 
— about 1200. 

An preost wes on leoden ; 
Layamon wes ihoten ; 
He wes Leouenadhes sone : 
Lidhe him beo Drihte. 
He wonede at Ernleye, 
At aedhelen are chireclien, 
Yppen Seuame stathe, 
On fest Radestone ; 
Tlier he bock radde. 
Hit com him on mode, 
And on his mem thonke, 
Thet he wolde of Engle 
Tha aedhelaen tellen. 

[A priest was on earth (or, perhaps, in the land, or among the 
people) ; Layamon was [he] hight (called) ; he was Leovenath's 
son; gracious to him be [the] Lord. He wonned (dwelt) at 
Ernley, at a noble church, upon Severn bank, — good there to 
him it seemed — near to Eadestone ; there he book read. It 
came to him in mind, and in his chief (?) thought, that he would 
of Englishmen the noble-deeds tell.] 

Here, again, the dh is to be sounded as the th in this^ and is 
represented by one character in the MS. The obsolete cha- 
racter, also, which is here printed y in Layamon and Ernleye, 
appears to have usually had the sound either of y or of g before 
a vowel, and a guttural sound, which may be represented by gh, 
before a consonant. It is sometimes rendered into modem 
typography by z, to which it can have no phonetic resemblance. 



124 ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 



II. Period of Early English ; A.D. 1250-1350. 

3. Dedication by the Author of the Ormulum to his 
Brother: — about 1250. 

Nu, brotherr Wallterr, brotherr min affterr the 

flaeshes kinde; 
And brotherr min i Crisstendom thurrh fuUuhht and 

thurrh trowwthe ; 
And brotherr min i Godess hus, yet o the thridde 

wise, 
Thurrh thatt witt hafenn takenn ba an reghell boc 

to follghen, 
Vnnderr kanunnkess had and lif, swa summ Sannt 

Awwstin sette; 
Ice hafe don swa summ thu badd, and fortheddte 

thin wille; 
Ice hafe wennd inntill Ennglissh goddspelless halghe 

lare, 
Affterr thatt little witt tatt me min Drihhten hafethth 

lenedd. 

[Now, brother Walter, brother mine after the flesh's kind; 
And brother mine in Christendom, through baptism and 

through truth (faith) ; 
And brother mine in God's house, yet in the third wise, 
Through (for) that we have taken both one rule-book to follow, 
Under (the) canon's rank and life so as Saint Austin ruled; 
I have done so as thou badest, and furthered thy will (wish) ; 
I have turned into English (the) Gospel's holy lore, 
After that Httle wit that me my Lord hath lent.] 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. ]25 

There is here preserved the peculiar spelling of the writer, 
which is supposed to indicate the pronunciation of his day. See 
ante, pp. 71-74. 

The passage is given both by Mr. Guest in his English 
Rhythms, ii. 208-211, with a translation into modern English, 
and by Mr. Thorpe in his AnaJecta Anglo- Saxonica. The only 
differences are that Mr. Guest has *' thride wise" and " that Little 
wit." It appears also, from a note of Mr. Guest's, that in the 
MS. Wallterr is written only Wallf, and that affterr and some 
other words are contracted in the same manner. 

Mr. Guest conceives ihsitfortheddte is a com-poMnd, forthed te, 
that is, forwarded for thee. Mr. Thorpe, in the Glossary to the 
second edition of the Analecta (12mo. Lond. 1846), retains, not- 
withstanding, the interpretation he had given in his first edition, 
farthered^ forwarded. 



4. Proclamation of Henry III. to the Inhabitants of 
Huntingdonshire, A.D. 1258. 

Henr', thurg Godes fultume, King on Englene- 
loande, Lhoaverd on Yrloand, Duk on Norm', on Aqni- 
tain', and Eorl on Anion, send igi^etinge to alio hise 
halde, ilaerde and ilaewed, on Huntendon' schir'. 

Thaet witen ye wel alle timet we willen and unnen 
thaet thaet ure raedesmen, alle other the moare dael of 
heom, thaet beotli ichosen thurg us and thurg thaet loan- 
des folk on ure kunericlie, habbeth idon, and schullen 
don, in the \Yorthnesse of Gode, and on ure treowthe, for 
the freme of the loande, thurg the besigte of than to 
foreniseide redesmen, beo stedefaest and ilestinde in alle 
thinge abuten aende. 

And we hoaten alle ure treowe, in the treowthe 
thaet heo us ogen, thaet heo stedefaesliche healden and 



126 ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 

swerien to healden and to werien the isetnesses thet 
beon imakede and beo to makien, tburg than to foren 
iseide raedesmen, other thurg the moare dael of heom, 
alswo alse hit is biforen iseid. 

And thaet aehc other helpe thaet for to done, bi tham 
ilche othe, agenes alle men [in alle thaet heo]-!^ oght for 
to done and to foangen. And noan ne mine of loande, ne 
of eghteohaero, thurg his besigte, muge beon ilet other 
iwersed on onie wise. And gif oni other onie cumen her 
ongenes, we willen and hoaten, thaet alle ure treowef 
heom healden deadlicheistan. 

And for thaet we willen thaet this beo stedefaest and 
lestinde, we senden yew this writ open, iseined with ure 
seel, to halden amanges yew ine herd. Witnesse us- 
selven aet Lunden', thane eghtetenthe day on the monthe 
of Octobr', in the two and fowertighthe yeare of ure 



[Henry, through God's help, King in England, Lord in Ireland, 
Duke in Normandy, in Aquitain, and Earl in Anjou, sends greet- 
ing to all his subjects, learned and lay, in Huntiogdonshire. 

This know ye Avell all that we will and grant that that our 
counsellors, all or the more part of them, that be chosen through 
us and through the land's folk in our kingdom, have done and 
shall do, in the honour of God and in our truth (allegiance), for 
the good of the land, through the business (act) of those to- 
foresaid counsellors, be steadfast and lasting in all things but 
(without) end. 

And we enjoin all our lieges, in the truth (allegiance) that 
they us owe, that they steadfastly hold, and swear to hold and to 
defend the ordinances that be made and be to make through the 

* These words are not in the copy here followed, but seem to 
be required by the sense. 

+ An " owe" which is inserted here appears to be a repetition 
by mistake of the last letters of the preceding word. 



ILLUSTKATIVE SPECIMENS. 127 

to-foresaid counsellors, or through the more joart of them, also 
as it is before said. 

And that each other help that for to do, by them (to) each 
other against all men (in all that they) ought for to do and to 
promote. And none, nor of my land nor elsewhere, through tliis 
business may be let (hindered) or damaged in any ^\ise. And if 
any man or any woman come them against, we mR and enjoin 
that all our lieges them hold deadly foes. 

And, for that we Avill that this be steadfast and lasting, we send 
you this writ open, signed with our seal, to hold amongst you in 
hoard (store). Witness ourselves at London, this eighteenth 
day in the month of October, in the two and fortieth year of om' 
crowning.] 

This proclamation or charter is given, with an interlineary 
translation into modem Enghsh, in an Appendix to the fomth 
volume of Henry's History of Great Britain. Henry no doubt 
copied it from some printed book. The text here given, which 
differs in many minute particulars from the one in Henry, is 
taken from the Eecord Commission edition of Hymefs Fcedera, 
vol. i. (1816), p. 378, where it is entitled " Carta Eegis in 
idiomate Anghco, ad singulos comitatus Anghse et Hiberniae 
super reformatione status regni per proceres ejusdem regni ; " 
and is stated to be transcribed from the original am(mg the 
Patent Eolls in the Tower of London (" Pat. 43, Hen. III. m. ] 5, 
in Turr. Lond.") 

See, upon the subject of the language of this document, ante, 
p. 75. 



5. The Commencement of Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle, 
as ^printed by Hearne : — about 1300. 

Engelond ys a ^Yel god lond, ich wene of eclie lond best, 
Yset in the ende of the world, as al in the West. 



128 



ILLUSTEATIYE SPECIMENS. 



The see goth hym al a boute, he stent as an yle. 

Here fon heo cluiTe the lasse doute, but hit be thorw ' 

gyle 

Of fol of the selue lend, as me hath y seye wyle. 
From South to North he is long eight e hondred myle ; 
And foure hondred myle brod from Est to West to 

wende, 
Amydde tho lend as yt be, and noght as by the on ende. 
Plente me may in Engelond of alle gode y se, 
Bute folc yt for giilte other yeres the worse be. 
For Engelond ys ful ynow of fruyt and of tren, 
Of wodes and of parkes, that joye yt ys to sen ; 
Of foules and of bestes, of wylde and tame al so ; 
Of salt fysch and eche fresch, and fayre ryueres ther to ; 
Of welles swete and colde ynow, of lesen and of mede ; 
Of seluer or and of gold, of tyn and of lede ; 
Of stel, of yrn, and of bras ; of god corn gret won ; 
Of whyte and of woUe god, betere ne may be non. 

[England is a very good land, I ween of every land (the) best ; 
set in the end of the world, as (being) wholly in the west. The 
sea goeth it all about ; it standeth as an isle. Their foes they 
need (?) the less fear, except it be through guile of folk of the same 
land, as men have sefen sometimes. From South to North it is 
long eight hundred mile ; and four hundred mile broad from 
East to West to wend, amid the land as it be, and not as by the 
one end. Plenty men may in England of all good see, except 
(were it not for) folk that for guilt some years the worse be. For 
England is full enough of fruit and of trees; of woods and of 
parks, that joy it is to see; of fowls and of beasts, of wild and 
tame also ; of salt fish and eke fresh, and fair rivers thereto ; of 
wells sweet and cold enow, of pasture and of mead ; of silver ore 
and of gold, of tin and of lead ; of steel, of iron, and of brass ; of 
good com great store ; of wheat and of good wool, better may be 
none.] 



ILLUSTRATITE SPECIMENS. 129 



6. Piobert de Brunnes Account of the Alteration of the 
Coinage hy Edward I. in li2S"2,fro7n his Translation 
of Peter Langtoffs Chronicle: — about 1340. 

.Now tumes Edward ageyn to London his cite, 
' x\nd wille \vite ceiteyn^ who schent^ has his mone. 

Of clippers, of roungers,^ of suilk^ takes he questis ; 

Old used traitoui'es ilk at other hand kestis. 

Ilk these other out said, ilk a schi'ewe other greues ; ^ 

Of fele ^ were handes laid, and hanged ther as theues. 

Edward did smj1:e7 rounde peny, halfpeny, ferthing, 

The croise ^ passed the bounde of alle thorghout the ryng. 

The kynge s side salle he the hede and his name writen ; 

The croyce side what cite it was in coyned and smyten. 

The pouere man ne the preste the peny prayses no thing. 

Men gyf God the lest,9 the fesse^^ him vdth a ferthing. 
jj A thousand and two hundred and fourscore yeres mo,^^ 

Of this mone men wondred first whan it gan go.* 

^ Know certainly. ^ Corrupted. ^ Nippers. * Such. 

s Ilk and ilk a mean every with De Brunne, as they still do in 
the Scottish dialect ; and kestis is casts ; but, perhaps, scarcely 
more than a doubtful sense can be extracted from these two 
lines, as Heame has printed them. His Glossaiy affords no aid 
towards then* intei^Dretation. 

e Many. 7 Strike. 

^ Cross (the oi or oy being probably pronounced nearly as our 
in the modem form of the word, or somewhat as the oi in the 
I French croix). 
? 9 Least. '0 xhey feast. ^* More. 

* From Heame' s Edition, 238, 239 Of course the e makes 

a distinct syllable in such words as cite and mone. 

K 



130 ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 



III. Period of Middle English: A.D. 1350-1550. 

7. Commencement of Minofs Poem on the Battle of 
Halidon Hill, fought 1333 : — about 1350. 

Trew king, that sittes in trone, 

Unto the I tell my tale, 
And unto the I bid a bone ^ 

For thou ert bute ^ of all my bale : 
Als thou made midelerd and the mono, ^ 

And bestes and fowles grete and smale, 
Unto me send thi socore sone, 

And dresce my dedes in this dale. "* 

* Offer a prayer. ^ Boot, remedy. 

' As thou madest middle-earth and the moon. 

* Direct my deeds in this vale (of misery). 



8. Commencement of the Vision of Piers Ploughman y 
from Wright's Edition, 1842 : — about 1360. 

In a somer seson 
Whan softe was the sonne, 
I shoop me into shroudes^ 
As I a sheep 2 weere, 
In habite as an heremite 
Unholy of werkes, 



ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 131 

Went wide in this world 
Wondres to here ; 
Ac 3 on a May morwenynge 
On Malverne hilles 
Me befel a ferly,^ 
Of fairye me thoghte. 
I was wery for-wandred, 
And went me to reste 
Under a brood ^ bank 
By a bom^nes syde ; 
And as I lay and lenede, 
And loked on the watres, 
I slombred into a slepyng, 
It sweyed so murye.^ 

* I put myself into clothes. ^ Shepherd. 
^ And. ■* Wonder, * Broad. 

* It sounded so pleasant. 



9. Comynencement of the Seventh Chapter of Sir John 
MandeviVs Travels, entitled " Of the Pilgrimages in 
Jerusalem, and of the Holy Places thereahoute,'* 
from the Cotton MS. Titus, C. xvi., which is believed 
to have been written about the year 1400 : — about 

After for to speke of Jerusalem the holy cytee, yee 
schull undirstonde that it stent full faire betw^ene hilles, 

* This text was first published in a contribution to the " Pic- 
torial History of England " by Sir Henry Ellis. 



132 ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 

and there be no ryveres ne welles, but watar cometb by 
condyte from Ebron. And yee schulle understonde 
that Jerusalem of olde tyme, unto the tyme of Melchise- 
dech, was cleped Jebus ; and after it was clept Salem, 
unto the tyme of Kyng David, that put these two 
names to gider, and cleped it Jerosolomye. And after 
that men cleped it Jerusalem, and so it is cleped yit. 
And aboute Jerusalem is the kpigdom of Surrye 
[Syria]. And there besyde is the lend of Palestyne. 
And besyde it is Ascolon. And besyde that is the lond 
of Maritanie. But Jerusalem is in the lond of Judee ; 
and it is clept Jude for that Judas Machabeus was 
kyng of that contree. And it marcheth estward to the 
kyngdom of Arabye ; on the south syde to the lond of 
Egipt ; and on the west syde to the Grete See. On the 
north syde toward the k^mgdom of Surrye, and to the 
see of Cypre. 



10. Beginning of the l()th Chapter of St. Luke, from the 
Earlier of the tico Versions ascribed to Wydiffe and 
his followers : — about 1 380.-'' 

Forsothe he seide also to his disciplis, Ther was sum 
riche man, that liadde a fermour, ether a baily ; and 
this was defamyd anentis him, as he hadde wastid his 
goodis. And he clepide him, and seide to him. What 

* According to the text published in "The Holy Bible. . . 
made from the Latin Vulgate, by John Wycliffe and his fol 
lowers : Edited by the Rev. Josiah ForshaU and Sir Frederic 
Madden, K. H." 4 vols. 4to. Oxford, 1850. 



ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 133 

heere I this thing of thee? yelcl resoun of thi ferme, 
for now thou schalt not mowe holde thi ferme. Forsoth 
the fermour seide with ynne him silf, What schal I do, 
for my lord takith awey fro me the ferme ? I may not 
delue, I am aschamyd to begge. I woot what I schal 
do, that, whanne I schal be remouyd fro the ferme, thei 
receyue me in to her housis. And, alle the dettours of 
the lord clepid to gidere, he seide to the firste, Hon 
moche owist thou to my lord? And he seide to him, 
An hundrid barelis of oyle. And he seide to him, Taak 
thin obHgacioun, and sitte soon, and wryt fyfti. iVftir- 
ward he seide to another, Sothli hou moche owist thou ? 
Which seide. An hundrid mesuris of whete. And he 
seide to him, Tak thi lettris, and wryt foure score. And 
the lord preiside the fermour of wickidnesse, for he 
hadde don prudently ; for the sones of this world ben 
more prudent in her generacioun than the sones of light. 
And I seie to you, make to you frendes of the richesse 
of wickidnesse, that, whan ye shulen fayle, thei receyue 
you in to euerlastpige tabeiiiaclis. 



11. From Trevisa's Translation of Higden^s PolycJiro- 
nicon, Book I. chap, lix, : as printed by Tynvliitt 
in his edition of Chaucer s Canterbury Tales, I. 19, 
from MS. Harl. 1900 :— 1385. 

This apayringe {disparaging) of the birthe tonge is by 
cause of tweye thinges : oon is for children in scole, 
agenes the usage and manor of alle other naciouns, both 
compelled for to leve her owne langage, and for to 



134 ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 

constrewe her lessouns and her thingis a Frensche, and 
haveth siththe that the Normans come first into England. 
Also gentil mennes children beth ytaught for to speke 
Frensche from the tjme that thei beth rokked in her 
cradel, and kunneth speke and plave with a childes 
brooche. And uplondish men wol likne hem self to 
gentil men, and fondeth with grete bisynesse for to speke 
Frensche, for to be the more ytold of. — (Teevisa.) This 
maner was myche yused to fore the first moreyn {iJiur- 
rain, j^^^^ue), and is siththe som del ychaungide. For 
John Comwaile, a maistre of grammer, chaungide ' the 
lore in grammer scole and construction of Frensch into 
Englisch, and Richard Pencriche lemed that maner 
teching of him, and other men of Pencriche. So that 
now, the yere of our lord a thousand thre hundred foure 
score and fyve, of the secunde King Rychard after the 
Conquest nyne, in alle the gramer scoles of Engiond 
children leveth Frensch, and construeth and lerneth an 
[in) Englisch, and haveth therby avauntage in oon side 
and desavauntage in another. Her avauntage is, that 
thei lerneth her gramer in lasse tyme than children 
were wont to do. Desavauntage is, that now children 
of gramer scole kunneth no more Frensch that can her 
lifte {knoics their left) heele. And that is harm for hem, 
and thei schul [an they shall) passe the see and travaile 
in strange londes, and in many other places also. Also 
gentel men haveth now mych ylefte for to teche her 
children Frensch. 



ILLUSTEATIVE SPECIMENS. 



]35 



12. Beginning of the Beeves Tale, from Chaucer s Can- 
terbury Tales, after the Text in Wright's Edition, 
IS4.7 -.—about 1390. 

At Trompyngtoun, nat fer* fra Cantebrigge, 

Ther goth a brook, and over that a brigge, 

Upon tlie wbiche brook then stant a melle ; ^ 

And this is verray sothe that I you telle. 

A meller was ther dwellyng many a day ; 

As eny pecok he was prowd and gay ; 

Pipen he coude, and fisshe, and nettys beete,' 

And tume cuppes, wrastle wel, and scheete ;•* 

Ay by his belt he bar a long panade,^ 

And^ of a swerd ful trenchaunt was the blade ; 

A joly popper'^ bar he in his pouche ; 

Ther was no man for perel dui'st him touche ; 

A Schejffeld thwitel bar he in his hose ; 

Round was his face, and camois^ was his nose ; 

As pyled^ as an ape was his skuUe ; 

He was a market-beter ^^ at the fulle ; 

Ther durst e no wight hand upon him legge," 

That he ne swar anon he schuld abegge. ^^ 



* Not far. 2 Stands a mill, 
s A kind of two-eaged knife. 
7 Dagger. * Flat. 

*° A swaggerer in the market? 



5 Mend. * Shoot. 
^ Should apparently be As. 
9 Peeled (bald). 
'1 Lav. J2 Suffer for. 



136 ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 



13. From the Persones (Parsons) Tale, in Chaucer s 
Canterbury Tales, according to Wright's Edition : — 
about 1390. 

A philosoplier upon a t}'me, that wolde have bete his 
disciple for his grete trespas, for which he was gretly 
amoeved, and brought a jerde (^^od) to secure (score) the 
child ; and whan the child saugh the yerde, he sayde to 
his maister, What thenke ye to do ? I wold bete the, 
quod the maister, for thi correccioun. Forsothe, quod 
the child, ye oughte first correcte youresilf, that han lost 
al your pacience for the gilt of a child. Forsothe, quod 
the maister al wepyng, thou saist soth ; have thou the 
yerde, my deere sone, and correcte me for myn impa- 
cience. 



14. From Lydgates Poem entitled his Testament, accord- 
ing to HalliwelVs Text, 1840 : — about 1450. 

During the tyme of this sesoun Ver, 

I meene the sesoun of my yeerys greene, 

Gynnyng fro childhood stretchith * up so fer 

To the yeerys accountyd ful fifteene, 

B' experience, as it was weel scene, 

The gerisshe sesoun straunge of condiciouns 

Dispoosyd to many unbridlyd passiouns ; 

Voyd of resoun, yove to w^ilfulnesse, 
Froward to vertu, of thrift gafe litil heede, 
Loth to leme, lovid no besynesse 



ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 137 

Sauf pley or merthe, straunge to spelle or reede, 
Folw}^ng al appetites longyng to childheede, 
Lilitlj toumyng, wylde and seelde sad, 
Weepyng for nouhte and anoon afftir glad. 

For litil wroth to stryve with my felawe, 
As my passiouns did my bridil leede, 
Of the yeerde somtyme I stood in awe ; 
To be scooryd that was al my dreede ; — 
Loth toward scole, lost my tyme indeede, 
Lik a young colt that ran withowte hrydil, 
Made my freendys ther good to spend in ydil. 

I hadde in custom to come to scole late, 
Nat for to leme, hut for a contenaunce ; ^ 
With my felawys reedy to debate, 
In jangle and jape^ was set al my pleasaunce ; 
Wherof rebuked this was my chevisaunce,^ 
To forge a lesyng^ and therupon to muse, 
Whan I trespasyd mysilven to excuse. 

To my bettre did no reverence, 

Of my sovereyns gaf no fors at al,^ 

Wex obstynat by inobedience, 

Ean into gardyns, applys ther I stal ; 

To gad re frutys sparyd hegg nor wal ; 

To plukke grapys in othir mennys vynes, 

Was moor reedy than for to seyn matynes. 

^ This is the reading in MS. Harl. 22b6, fol. 60. In MS. Harl. 
218, /oZ. 66, it is stretched, 

*^ Appearance. ^ Trick, jest. ^ Contrivance. ^ Lie. 

® This line seems to be corrupted. Perhaps sovereyns should 
be sufferance. 



138 ILLUSTEATIYE SPECIMENS. 



15. Conclusion of Caxtons English Translation of 
Higdens Polychronicon : — 1482. 

And here I make an ende of this lytel werke as nygh 
as I can fynde after tlie forme of the werk to fore made 
by Ranulph monk of Chestre. And where as ther is 
fawte, I beseche them that shal rede it to correcte it. 
For yf I coude haue founden moo storyes I wold haue 
sette in hit moo ; but the substaunce that I can fynde 
and knowe I haue shortly sette hem in this book, to 
thentente that such thpiges as haue ben done syth the 
deth or ende of the sayd boke of Polycronycon shold be 
had in remembraunce and not putte in oblyuyon ne for- 
getynge ; prayenge all them that shall see this symple 
werke to par done me of my symple and rude wryt^mge. 
Ended the second day of Juyll the xxii yere of the regne 
of Kpige Edward the Fourth, and of the Incarnacion of 
om-e Lord a thousand four honderd foure score and 
twe}Tie. 

Fynysshed per Caxton. 



ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 139 



16. A Letter icritten by Sij' Thomas More to Ms Wife 
after the Burning of his House at Chelsea, from his 
'' Works,'' hij Rastell, 1557 :— 1528. 

Maistres Alyce, In my most hartj wise I recommend 
me to you ; and, whereas I am enfourmed by my son 
Heron [Jerome] of the losse of our bames and of our 
neighbours also, with all the corn that was therein, 
albeit (sa^dng God's pleasure) it is gret pitie of so much 
good corne lost, yet, sith it hath liked hym to sende us 
such a chaunce, we must and are bounden, not only to 
be content, but also to be glad of his yisitacion. He 
sente us all that we have loste ; and, sith he hath by 
such a chaunce taken it away againe, his pleasm'e be 
fulfilled. Let us never grudge ther at, but take it in 
good woith, and hartely thank him, as well for adver- 
setie as for prosperitie. And peradventm^e we have 
more cause to thank him for our losse then for our 
vdnning ; for his wisdome better seeth what is good for 
vs then we do our selves. Therfore I pray you be of 
good chore, and take all the howsold with you to church, 
and there thanke God, both for that he hath given us, 
and for that he hath taken from us, and for that he hath 
left us, which, if it please hym, he can encrease when he 
will. And, if it please hym to leave us yet lesse, at his 
pleasure be it. 

I pray you to make some good ensearche what my 
poore neighbours have lost, and bid them take no thought 
therfore ; for, and I shold not leave myself a spone, there 



140 ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 

shal no pore neighbour of mine bere no losse by any 
chaunce happened in my house. I pray you be, with 
my children and your household, merry in God. And 
devise some what with your frendes, what waye wer best 
to take for provision to be made for come for our house- 
hold, and for sede thys yere comming, if ye thinke it 
good that we kepe the ground stil in our handes. And, 
whether ye think it good that we so shall do or not, yet 
I think it were not best sodenlye thus to leave it all up, 
and to put away our folk of our farme till we have 
somwhat advised us thereon. How beit, if we have 
more no we then ye shall nede, and which can get them 
other maisters, ye may then discharge us of them. But 
I would not that any man were sodenly sent away he 
wote nere wether. . . 



17. Beginning ofTyndaVs translation of the \^tli chapter 
of St. Ijuke, from the second edition of his New Tes- 
tament {as reprinted in the '* English Hexapla,'' 
1841); with the Variations, included within brackets, 
of the jpassage as given in his Treatise entitled 
''The Parable of the Wicked Mammon:'' — 1534 
and 1536. 

And he sayd also vnto his disciples, Ther was a cer- 
tayne rych [certain riche] man, which [the whichej had 
a stewarde [steward] that was acused [y* was accused] 
vnto him that [hym y^] he had wasted his goodes [goods]. 
And he called him, and sayd vnto him, How is it that I 
heare [hear] thys of the ? Give a comptes [accomptes] 



ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 141 

of thy steward shippe [steward shvpp] , for thou mavste 
[maiest] be no longer [my] stewarde. The stewarde 
[stewai'd] sajd A^ith in [within] him selfe, What shall I 
do [shal I dooj ? for my master will [wil] take awaye 
[away] from me the stewarde shippe [my stewardshypp] . 
I cannot digge [dygge], and to begge I am a shamed 
[ashamed]. I woote [wot] what to do, that when [whan] 
I am put out of the stewardshippe [my stewardship], 
they may receaye [receyue] me into thek houses. Then 
called he all [al] his master's detters, and sayd [said] 
Mito the fyrst [firste], How moche [muche] owest thou 
vnto my master? And he sayd [said], An hondred 
[an c] tonnes of oyle [oile[. And he sayd to [said vnto] 
him, Take thy bill [byl], and syt donne [sit down] quicldy, 
and wiyte fiftie [write I.]. Then sayd he to another, 
What owest thou? And he sayde [sayd]. An hondred 
[an c] quarters of wheate [wheat]. He sayd to him [said 
^^ito hym], Take thy bill [byl] and wiite foure scoore 
[Ixxx.]. And the lorde [lord] commended the uniust 
stewarde [steward], because he had done wysly [don 
wisely]. For the chyldren [children] of this worlde 
[thys world] ai'e in their kynde wyser [kind ^viser] then 
the chyldren [children] of lyght [light]. And I saye 
[say] also vnto you, make you frendes [fnndes] of the 
wiked Mammon, that, whan ye shall departe [shall 
haue nede], they may receave [receyue] you into ever- 
lastinge [in euerlasting] habitacions. 



142 ILLUSTEATIVE SPECIMENS. 



1 8. Sonnet hy Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey : — 
about 1545. 

The soote* season, that bud and bloom forth brings, 

With green hath clad the hill and eke the vale ; 
The nightingale \Yith. feathers new she sings ; 

The turtle to her make ^ hath told her tale ; 
Summer is come, for eveiy spray now springs ; 

The hart hath hung his old head on the pale ; 
The buck in brake his ^^inter coat he flings ; 

The fishes fleet with new-repaired scale ; 
The adder all her slough away she flings ; 

The swift swallow pursueth the flies smale ; ^ 
The busy bee her honey now she mings ; ^ 

Winter is worn that was the flowers bale ; 
And thus I see among these pleasant things 

Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs ! * 

1 Sweet. 2 Mate. ^ SmaU. * Mingles. 
* The spelling is modernised in this specimen. 



ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 143 



IV. Period of Modern English :— A.D. 1550 

19. Commencement of Sackvilles Induction to the Third 
Fart of " The Mirror for Magistrates ;" — 1559. 

The wratMull winter, procliing^ on apace, 
With blustering blasts had all ybarde the treen,^ 
And old Satumus, ^\ith his frosty face. 
With chilling cold had peaxst the tender greene ; 
The mantles rent, wherein enwrapped beene 
The gladsom gi^oues that now lay ouerthi'owne. 
The tapets^ torne and every blome downe blowne. 

The soyle, that erst so seemly was to scene, 

Was all despoyled of her beauties hewe ; 

And soote- fresh flowers, wherewith the sommers 

queene 
Had clad the earth, now Boreas blasts downe blewe ; 
And small foules, flocking, in theyr song did rewe 
The winters wrath, wherewith ech thing defaste 
In woefull wise bewajld the sommer past. 

' Approaching. ^ Bared the trees. ^ Hangings, leaves. 



144 ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 



20. From AscJiam's ''Schoolmaster :'" — ahout 1563. 

Quick wits commonly be apt to take, unapt to keep ; 
soon hot, and desirous of this and that; as cold and 
soon weary [as soon cold and weary ?] of the same 
again ; more quick to enter speedily than able to pierce 
far ; even like over-sharp tools, whose edges be very soon 
turned. Such wits delight themselves in easy and 
pleasant studies, and never pass far forward in high 
and hard sciences. And therefore the quickest wits 
commonly may prove the best poets, but not the wisest 
orators ; ready of tongue to speak boldly, not deep of 
judgment either for good counsel or wise writing. Also 
for manners and life, quick wits commonly be in desire 
newfangled ; in purpose unconstant ; light to promise 
any thing ; ready to forget every thing, both benefit 
and injury ; and thereby neither fast to friend nor 
fearful to foe ; inquisitive of every trifle ; not secret in 
the gi'eatest affairs ; bold with any person ; busy in 
every matter ; soothing such as be present ; nipping 
any that is absent ; of nature, also, always flattering 
their betters, envying their equals, despising their 
inferiors ; and, by quickness of wit, very quick and 
ready to like none so well as themselves.-'' 

* The spelling is modernised in this specimen. 



II: 



ILLUSTKATIVE SPECIMENS. 145 



21. From Sir Philip Sidney's " Apologie for Poetrie:'' — 
about 1580. 

The Pliilosopher, tlierefore, and the Historian are they 
which would win the gole ; the one by precept, the other 
by example. But both, not hauing both, do both halte. 
For the Philosopher, setting downe with thorny argu- 
ment the bare inile, is so hard of vtterance, and so 
mistie to bee conceiued, that one that hath no other 
guide but him shall wade in him till hee be olde before 
he shall finde sufficient cause to bee honest: for his 
knowledge standeth so vpon the abstract and generall, 
that happie is that man who may vnderstande him, and 
more happie that can apply e what hee dooth vnder stand. 
On the other side, the Historian, wanting the precept, 
is so tyed, not to what shoulde bee, but to what is, to the 
particuler truth of things, and not to the generall reason 
of things, that hys example draweth no necessary con- 
sequence, and therefore a lesse fruitful doctiine. 

Now dooth the peereless Poet performe both ; for, what- 
soeuer the philosopher sayth should be doone, hee giueth 
a perfect picture of it in some one by whom hee presup- 
poseth it was doone ; so as he coupleth the generall 
notion with the particuler example. A perfect picture, 
I say; for he yeeldeth to the powers of the minde an 
. image of that whereof the Pliilosopher bestoweth but a 
woordish description, which dooth neyther strike, pierce, 
nor possesse the sight of the soule so much as that 
other dooth. For as, in outward things, to a man that 
had neuer seene an elephant or a rinoceros, who should 



146 ILLUSTEATIVE SPECIMENS. 

tell him most exquisitely all theyr shapes, cuUour, big- 
nesse, and particular markes ; or, of a gorgeous pallace 
the architecture, with declaring the full beauties, might 
well make the hearer able to repeate, as it were, by rote, 
all hee had heard, yet should neuer satisfie his inward 
conceit with being wdtnes to it selfe of a true liuely 
knowledge ; but the same man, as soone as hee might 
see those beasts well painted, or the house wel in modell, 
should straightwaies grow, without need of any discrip- 
tion, to a iudiciall comprehending of them ; so no doubt 
the philosopher, with his learned definition, bee it of 
virtue, vices, matters of publick policie or priuat 
gouernment, replenisheth the memory with many infal- 
lible grounds of wisdom ; which, notwithstanding, lye 
darke before the imaginatiue and iudging powTC, if they 
bee not illuminated or figured foorth by the speaking 
pictm^e of Poesie. 



22. The Reply of Beli^hoehe to Braggadoccio, in the Third 
Canto of the Second Booh of Spenser s " Faerie 
Queene ; " — about 1590. 

" Whoso in pompe of prowd estate," quoth she, 

"Does swim, and bathes himself e in courtly blis, 

Does waste his daies in dark obscuritee, 

And in oblivion ever buried is : 

Where ease abownds yt's eath^ to do amis : 

But who his limbs with labours, and his mynd 

Behaves 2 with cares, cannot so easy mis. 

Abroad in armes, at home in studious kjTid, 

Who seekes with painfull toile shall Honor soonest fynd. 



ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 147 

" In woods, in waves, in warres she wonts to dwell, 

And wil be found with perill and ^ith paine ; 

Ne can the man that moulds in ydle cell 

Unto her happy mansion attaine ; 

Before her gate High God did Sweate ordaine 

And wakefull Watches ever to abide : 

But easy is the way and passage plaine 

To Pleasures pallace ; it may soone be spide, 

And day and night her dores to all stand open and wide." 

* Easy. 2 Employs, occupies. 



23. Description of the Irish Mantle, from Spenser s 
*' View of the State of Ireland:'" — ahout 1595. 

It is a fit house for an out-law, a meet bed for a 
rebel, and an apt cloke for a thiefe. Fii'st, the out- 
law, being for his many crimes and villanyes banished 
from the townes and houses of honest men, and wan- 
dring in waste places, far from danger of law, maketh 
his mantle his house, and under it covereth himselfe 
from the wrath of heaven, from the offence of the earth, 
and from the sight of men. When it raineth it is his 
pent-house ; when it bloweth it is his tent ; when it 
freezeth it is his tabernacle. In sommer he can wear 
it loose, in winter he can wrap it close ; at all times he 
can use it ; never heav)^ never cumbersome. Likewise, 
for a rebell it is as sendceable. For in his warre that 
he maketh (if at least it deserves the name of warre), 
when he still flyeth from his foe, and lurketh in the 
thicke woods and straite passages, waiting for advan- 



148 ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 

tages, it is liis bed, yea and almost his houshold stuff. 
For tlie wood is his house against all weathers, and his 
mantle is his couch to sleep in. Therein he wrappeth 
himself round, and coucheth himselfe strongly against 
the gnats, which in that countrej doe more annoy the 
naked rebels whilst they keepe the woods, and doe more 
sharply wound them, then all their enemies swords or 
spears, wiiich can seldome come nigh them. Yea and 
oftentimes their mantle serveth them, when they are 
neere driven, being wrapped about their left arme, in 
stead of a target, for it is hard to cut thorough with a 
sword ; besides, it is light to beare, light to throw away; 
and, being, as they commonly are, naked, it is to them 
all in all. Lastly, for a theife it is so handsome, as it 
may seem it was first invented for him ; for under it he 
may cleanly convey any fit pillage that commeth hand- 
somly in his way, and when he goeth abroad in the 
night in free-booting it is his best and surest friend; 
for, lying, as they often do, two or three nights together 
abroad to watch for their booty, with that they can 
prettily shroud themselves under a bush or a bank side 
till they may conveniently do their errand ; and when 
all is over he can in his mantle passe tln-ough any town 
or company, being close hooded over his head, as he 
useth, from knowledge of any to whom he is indan- 
gered. ... 



ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 149 



24. Beginning of Hooker's '' Ecclesicistical Polity:'' — 
about 1600.* 

He that goeth about to persuade a multitude that 
they are not so well governed as they ought to be shall 
never vrant attentive and favourable hearers, because 
they know the manifold defects whereunto every kind 
of govenmaent is subject; but the secret lets and diffi- 
culties, which in public proceedings are innumerable 
and inevitable, they have not ordinarily the judgment to 
consider. And, because such as openly reprove supposed 
disorders of state are taken for principal friends to the 
common benefit of all, and for men that caiTy singular 
freedom of mind, under this fair and plausible colour 
whatsoever they utter passeth for good and current. 
That which wanteth in the weight of their speech is 
supplied by the aptness of men's minds to accept and 
belicA^e it. Whereas, on the other side, if we maintain 
things that are established, we have not only to strive 
with a number of heavy prejudices, deeply rooted in the 
hearts of men, who think that herein we serve the time, 
and speak in favour of the present state, because thereby 
we either hold or seek preferment, but also to bear such 
exceptions as minds so averted beforehand usually take 
against that which they are loath should be pom^ed into 
them. 

* In this and all the remaining specimens the modem spelling 
is adopted. 



150 ILLUSTEATIYE SPECIMENS. 



25. From the Conclusion of UaleigJis "• History of the 
World r— about 1610. 

By this ^Yllicll we have already set down is seen the 
beginning and end of the thi^ee first monarchies of the 
world, whereof the founders and erectors thought that 
they could never have ended. That of Rome, which 
made the fom'th, was also at this time almost at the 
highest. We have left it flourishing in the middle of 
the field, having rooted up or cut down all that kept it 
from the eyes and admiration of the world : but, after 
some continuance, it shall begin to lose the beauty it 
had ; the storms of ambition shall beat her great boughs 
and branches one against another ; her leaves shall fall 
off, her limbs wither, and a rabble of barbarous nations 
enter the field and cut her down. 

Now these great kings and conquering nations have 
been the subject of those ancient histories which have 
been presented, and yet remain among us ; and withal 
of so many tragical poets as, in the persons of powerful 
princes and other mighty men, have complahied against 
infidelity, time, destiny, and most of all against the 
variable success of worldly things and instability of for- 
tune. To these undertakings the gi'eatest lords of the 
world have been stirred up rather by the desire of fame, 
which plougheth up the ak and soweth in the wind, than 
by the affection of bearing rule, which draweth after it 
so much vexation and so many cares. 



ILLUSTKATIVE SPECIMENS. 151 



26. Co7iclusion of Bacons " History of the Reign of 
King Henry the Seventh:'' — about 1620. 

He was a comely personage, a little above just 
stature, well and straight limbed, but slender. His 
countenance was reverend, and a little like a churcli- 
man ; and, as it was not strange or dark, so neither 
. was it winning or pleasing, but as the face of one well 
disposed. But it was to the disadvantage of the painter ; 
for it was best when he spake. 

His worth may bear a tale or two, that may put upon 
him somewhat that may secDi divine. When the Lady 
Margaret his mother had diverse great suitors for mar- 
riage, she dreamed one night that one in the likeness 
of a bishop, in pontifical habit, did tender her Edmund 
Earl of Eichmond (the King's father) for her husband. 
Neither had she ever any child but the King, though 
she had three husbands. One day when King Henry 
the Sixth (whose innocency gave him holiness) was wash- 
ing liis hands at a great feast, and cast his eye upon 
King Henry, then a yoimg youth, he said, " This is the 
lad that shall possess quietly that that we now strive 
for." But that that was truly divine in him was, that 
he had the fortune of a true Christian, as well as of a 
great King, in living exercised, and dying repentant. 
So as he had an happy warfare in both conflicts, both of 
sin and the cross. 

He was born at Pembroke Castle, and lieth buried 
at Westminster, m one of the stateliest monuments of 



152 ILLUSTEATIVE SPECIMENS. 

Europe, both for tlie cliapel and for tlie sepulchre. So 
that he dwelleth more richly dead, in the monument of 
his tomb, than he did alive in Eichmond, or any of his 
palaces. I coidd wish he did the like, in this monu- 
ment of his fame. 



27. Holies on Knowledge, from the Sixth Chapter of his 
" Humane Nature:'' — 1640. 

There is a story somewhere, of one that pretends to 
have been miraculously cured of blindness (wherewith he 
was born) by St. Alban, or other saint, at the town of 
St. Alban 's ; and that the Duke of Gloucester being 
there, to be satisfied of the truth of the miracle, asked 
the man, What colour is this ? Who, by answering, it 
was green, discovered himself, and was punished for a 
counterfeit ; for, though by his sight newly received he 
might distinguish between green and red, and all other 
colours, as well as any that should interrogate him, yet 
he could not possibly know at first sight which of them 
was called green, or red, or by any other name. By 
this we may understand, there be two kinds of Know- 
ledge ; where of the one is nothing else but Sense, or 
Knowledge original, as I have said in the beginning of 
the Second Chapter, and rememlrance of the same ; the 
other is called Science, or Knowledge of the truth of 
propositions, and how things are called, and is derived 
from understanding. Both of these sorts are but Expe- 
rience ; the former being the experience of the effects 
of things that work upon us from without, and the latter 
experience men have from the proper use of names in 
language ; and, all experience being, as I have said, but 



ILLUSTEATIVE SPECIMENS. 153 

remembrance, all knowledge is remembrance. And of 
the former the register we keep in books is called 
History ; but the registers of the latter are called the 
Sciences. 



•28. Conclusion of Lord Clarendon's " History of the 
Behellion:'' — about 1670. 

In this wonderful manner, and with this miraculous 
expedition, did God put an end in one month (for it was 
the first of May that the King's letter was delivered to 
the parliament, and his majesty was at Whitehall upon 
the twenty-ninth of the same month) to a rebellion that 
had raged near twenty years, and been carried on with 
all the horrid circumstances of parricide, murder, and 
devastation, that fire and the sword, in the hands of the 
most wicked men in the world, could be ministers of; 
almost to the desolation of two kingdoms, and the 
exceedinof defacino^ and deformino- the third. Yet did 

DO O 

the merciful hand of God in one month bind up all 
those wounds, and even made the scars as undiscernible 
as, in respect of the deepness, was possible ; which was 
a glorious addition to the deliverance. And, if there 
wanted more glorious monuments of this deliverance, 
posterity would know the time of it by the death of the 
two great favourites of the two crowns. Cardinal Maza- 
rine and Don Le^vis de Haro, who both died within 
three or four months, with the wonder if not the agony 
of this midreamed of prosperity, and as if they had 
taken it ill that God Almighty would bring such a work 
to pass in Europe without their concurrence and against 
all their machinations. 



154 ILLUSTEATIVE SPECIMENS. 



29. Part of the Character of Archbishop Leighton, from 
Bishop Burnet's ''History of his Own Time:'' — 
about 1690. 

He had great quickness of parts, a lively apprehen- 
sion, with a charming yiyacity of thought and expression. 
He had the greatest command of the purest Latin that 
ever I knew in any man. He was a master both of 
Greek and Hebrew, and of the whole compass of theo- 
logical learning, chiefly in the study of the Scriptures. 
But that which excelled all the rest was, he was pos- 
sessed with the highest and noblest sense of divine 
things that ever I saw in any man. He had no regard 
to his person, unless it was to mortify it by a constant 
low diet, that was like a perpetual fast. He had a con- 
tempt both of wealth and reputation. He seemed to 
have the lowest thoughts of himself possible, and to 
desire that all other persons should think as meanly of 
him as he did himself : he bore all sorts of ill usage and 
reproach, like a man that took pleasure in it. He had 
so subdued the natural heat of his temper, that, in a 
great variety of accidents, and in a course of twenty- two 
years' intimate conversation with him, I never observed 
the least sign of passion but upon one single occasion. 
He brought himself into so composed a gravity, that I 
never saw him laugh, and but seldom smile. And he 
kept himself in such a constant recollection, that I do 
not remember that ever I heard him say one idle word. 
There was a visible tendency in all he said to raise his 



ILLUSTKATIVE SPECIMENS. 155 

own mind, and those he conversed with, to serious 
reflections. He seemed to be in a pei'petual meditation. 
And, though the whole course of his hfe was strict and 
ascetical, yet he had nothing of the sourness of temper 
that generally possesses men of that sort. He was the 
freest from superstition, of censming others, or of im- 
posing his own methods on them, possible. So that he 
did not so much as recommend them to others. He 
said, there w^as a diversity of tempers, and every man 
was to watch over his own, and to tm^n it in the best 
manner he could. His thoughts were lively, oft out of 
the way and surprising, yet just and genuine. And he 
had laid together in his memory the greatest treasure of 
the best and wisest of all the ancient sayings of the 
heathens, as well as Christians, that I have ever known 
any man master of ; and he used them in the aptest 
manner possible. 



30. Dry den's Contrast between Chaucer and Cowley: 
from the Preface to the ''Fables:'' — 1700. 

In the first place, as he [Chaucer] is the Father of 
English poetry, so I hold him in the same degree of 
veneration as the Grecians held Homer, or the Romans 
Virgil. He is a perpetual fountain of good sense : 
learned in all sciences ; and therefore speaks properly 
on all subjects. As he knew what to say, so he knows 
also when to leave off ; a continence which is practised 
by few writers, and scarcely by any of the ancients, 
excepting Virgil and Horace. One of our late gTeat 
poets [Cowley] is sunk in his reputation, because he 



156 ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 

could never forgive [forego ?] any conceit whicli came 
in his way ; but swept, like a di'ag-net, great and small. 
There was plenty enough, but the dishes were ill-sorted ; 
whole pyramids of sweetmeats for boys and women, but 
little of solid meat for men. All this proceeded not 
from any want of knowledge, but of judgment. Neither 
did he want that in disceiTiing the beauties and faults 
of other poets, but only indulged himself in the luxury 
of wiiting ; and perhaps knew it was a fault, but hoped 
the reader would not find it. For this reason, though 
he must always be thought a great poet, he is no longer 
esteemed a good writer ; and, for ten impressions which 
his works have had in so many successive years, yet at 
present a hundred books are scarcely purchased once a 
twelvemonth. 



31. Addison s Panegyric upon Nonsense, from the Fourth 
Number of *' The Whig Examiner :'' — 1710. 

Hudibras has defined nonsense (as Cowley does mt) 
by negatives. Nonsense, says he, is that which is 
neither time nor false. These two great properties of 
nonsense, which are always essential to it, give it such 
a peculiar advantage over all other writing, that it is 
incapable of being either answered or contradicted. It 
stands upon its own basis, like a rock of adamant, se- 
cured by its natural situation against all conquests or 
attacks. There is no one place about it weaker than 
another, to favour an enemy in his approaches. The 
major and the minor are of equal strength. Its ques- 
tions admit of no reply, and its assertions are not to be 



ILLUSTKATIVE SPECIMENS. 157 

invalidated. A man may as well hope to distinguisli 
colours in the midst of darkness as to find out what to 
approve and disapprove in nonsense ; you may as well 
assault an army that is buried in entrenchments. If it 
afi&rms anything, you cannot lay hold of it; or if it 
denies, you cannot confute it. In a word, there are 
greater depths and obscmties, greater intricacies and 
perplexities, in an elaborate and well- written piece of 
nonsense than in the most abstruse and profound tract 
of school- divinity. 



32. Beginning of Lord Bolinghrohes ''Reflections ujjon 
Exile r— 17 W. 

Dissipation of mind, and length of time, are the 
jj remedies to which the greatest part of mankind trust 
ji in their afflictions. But the first of these works a 
temporary, the second a slow, effect ; and both are un- 
worthy of a wise man. Are we to fly from ourselves 
that we may fly from our misfortunes, and fondly to 
imagine that the disease is cured because we find 
means to get some moments of respite from pain ? 
Or shall we expect from time, the physician of brutes, 
a lingering and uncertain deliverance ? Shall we wait 
to be happy till we can forget that we are miserable, 
and owe to the weakness of our faculties a tranquillity 
which ought to be the effect of their strength? Far 
otherwise. Let us set all our past and our present 
afflictions at once before our eyes. Let us resolve to 
overcome them, instead of fl}ing from them, or wearing 



158 ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 

out the sense of them by long and ignominious patience. 
Instead of palliating remedies, let us use the incision- 
knife and the caustic, search the wound to the bottom, 
and work an immediate and radical cure. 

The recalling of former misfortunes serv^es to fortify 
the mind against later. He must blush to sink under 
the anguish of one w^ound, who surveys a body seamed 
over with the scars of many, and who has come vic- 
torious out of all the conflicts wherein he received them. 
Let sighs, and tears, and fainting under the lightest 
strokes of adverse fortune, be the portion of those un- 
happy people whose tender minds a long course of 
felicity has enen^ated ; while such as have passed 
through years of calamity bear up, with a noble and 
immoveable constancy, against the heaviest. Uninter- 
rupted misery has this good effect, as it continually 
torments, it finally hardens. 



33. Part of Sicift's account of the Lilliputians, from his 
'* Gulliver s Travels : " — about 1725. 

As the common size of the natives is somewhat under 
six inches high, so there is an exact proportion in all 
other animals, as well as plants and trees. For instance, 
the tallest horses and oxen are between four and five 
inches in height, the sheep an inch and half, more or 
less ; their geese about the bigness of a sparrow ; and 
so the several gradations downwards, till you come to 
the smallest, which, to my sight, were almost invisible ; 
but nature has adapted the eyes of the Lilliputians to 



ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 159 

all objects proper for their view; they see with great 
exactness, but at no great distance. And, to show the 
sharpness of their sight towards objects that are near, I 
have been much pleased with observing a cook pulling 
a lark which was not so large as a common fly, and a 
young girl threading an invisible needle with in^dsible 
silk. Their tallest trees are about seven feet high ; I mean 
some of those in the great royal park, the tops whereof 
I could but just reach with, my fist clenched. The other 
vegetables are in the same proportion ; but this I leave 
to the reader's imagination. 

I shall say but little at present of their learning, 
which for many ages has flomished in all its branches 
among them ; but their manner of writing is very pecu- 
liar, being neither from the left to the right, like the 
Europeans ; nor from the right to the left, like the 
Arabians ; nor from up to down, like the Chinese ; but 
aslant from one corner of the paper to the other, like 
ladies in England. 



34. Conclusion of Johnson s Preface to his ''English 
Dictionary .*" — 1755. 

In this work, when it shall be found that much is 
omitted, let it not be forgotten that much like^\ise is 
performed ; and, though no book was ever spared out of 
tenderness to the author, and the world is little solicitous 
to know whence proceeded the faults of that which it 
condemns, yet it may gratify curiosity to inform it, that 
the English Dictionary was wTitten with little assistance 



160 ILLUSTEATIVE SPECIMENS. 

of the learned, and without any patronage of the great ; 
not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under the 
shelter of academic bowers, but amid inconvenience and 
distraction, in sickness and in sorrow. It may repress 
the triumph of malignant criticism to observe, that, if 
our language is not here fully displayed, I have only 
failed in an attempt which no human powers have 
hitherto completed. If the lexicons of ancient tongues, 
now immutably fixed, and comprised in a few volumes, 
be yet, after the toil of successive ages, inadequate and 
delusive ; if the aggregated knowledge and co-operating 
diligence of the Italian academicians did not secure 
them from the censure of Beni ; if the embodied critics 
of France, when fifty years had been spent upon their 
work, were obliged to change its economy, and give their 
second edition another form, I may surely be contented 
without the praise of perfection, which if I could obtain, 
in this gloom of solitude what would it avail me ? I 
have protracted my work till most of those whom I 
wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success 
and miscarriage are empty sounds ; I therefore dismiss 
it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope 
from censure or from praise. 



35. Burke on the House of Commons ; from his " Thoughts 
on the Causes of the Present Discontents:'' — 1770. 

The House of Commons was supposed originally to 
be no part of the standing government of this country. 
It was considered as a controul, issuing immediately 



ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 161 

from the peoj^le, and speedily to be dissolved into the 
mass from whence it arose. In this respect it was in 
the higher part of the government ^\hat jmies are in 
the lower. The capacity of a magistrate being transi- 
torj', and that of a citizen permanent, the latter capacity 
it was hoped would of course preponderate in all dis 
cussions, not only between the people and the standing 
authority of the crown, but between the people and the 
fleeting authority of the House of Commons itself. It 
was hoped that, being of a middle natm'e between sub- 
ject and government, they would feel with a more tender 
and a nearer interest every thing that concerned the 
people than the other remoter and more permanent paits 
of legislature. 

Whatever alterations time and the necessary accom- 
modation of business may have introduced, this character 
can never be sustained, unless the House of Commons 
shall be made to bear some stamp of the actual dis- 
position of the people at large. It would (among public 
misfortunes) be an evil more natural and tolerable that 
the Hoase of Commons should be infected with ever}' 
epidemical frenzy of the people, as this would indicate 
some consanguinity, some symj)athy of nature, w^ith 
their constituents, than that they should in all cases be 
wholly mitouched by the opinions and feelings of the 
people out of doors. By this want of sympathy they 
would cease to be a House of Commons. For it is not 
the derivation of the power of that House from the 
people which makes it in a distinct sense their repre- 
sentative = The King is the representative of the people ; 
so are the Lords ; so are the Judges. They are all 
trustees for the people, as well as the Commons ; be- 
cause no power is given for the sole sake of the holder ; 

M 



162 ILLUSTEATIVE SPECIMENS. 

and, although government certainly is an institution of 
divine authority, yet its forms, and the persons who 
administer it, all originate from the people. A popular 
origin cannot, therefore, be the characteristical distinc- 
tion of a popular representative. This belongs equally 
to all parts of government, and in all forms. The 
virtue, spirit, and essence of a House of Commons con- 
sists in its being the express image of the feelings of 
the nation. It was not instituted to be a controul upon 
the people, as of late it has been taught, by a doctrine 
of the most pernicious tendency. It was designed as a 
controul for the people. Other institutions have been 
formed for the purpose of checking popular excesses ; 
and they are, I apprehend, fully adequate to their object. 
If not, they ought to be made so. The House of Com- 
mons, as it was never intended for the support of peace 
and subordination, is miserably appointed for that ser- 
vice ; having no stronger weapon than its mace, and no 
better officer than its Sergeant at Arms, which it can 
command of its own proper authority. A vigilant and 
jealous eye over executory and judicial magistracy ; an 
anxious care of public money ; an openness, approaching 
towards facility, to public complaint ; these seem to be 
the true characteristics of a House of Commons. But 
an addressing House of Commons, and a petitioning 
nation ; a House of Commons full of confidence, when 
the nation is plunged in despair ; in the utmost harmony 
with ministers, whom the people regard with the utmost 
abhorrence ; who vote thanks, when the public opinion 
calls upon them for impeachments ; who are eager to 
grant, when the general voice demands account ; who, 
in all disputes between the people and administration, 
presume against the people ; who punish their disorders', 






ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 163 

but refuse even to inquire into the provocations to them ; 
this is an unnatiu'al, a monstrous state of things in this 
constitution. Such an assembly may be a great, vise, 
av'ful senate ; but it is not to any popular purpose a 
House of Commons. This change from an immediate 
state of procuration and delegation to a com^se of acting 
as from original power is the way in which all the popu- 
lar magistracies in the world have been perverted from 
their purposes. It is indeed their greatest and some- 
times their incurable coiTuption. For there is a material 
distinction between that corruption by which particular 
points are carried against reason (this is a thing which 
cannot be prevented by human wisdom, and is of less 
consequence) and the coiTuption of the principle itself. 
For then the e^il is not accidental, but settled. The 
distemper becomes the natural habit. 



36. Conclusion of Gibbon's " Decline and Fall of the 
Roman Empire ; " — 1 787. 

The fame of Julius the Second, Leo the Tenth, and 
Sixtus the Fifth, is accompanied by the superior merit 
of Bramante and Fontana, of Raphael and Michael 
Angelo ; and the same munificence which had been 
displayed in palaces and temples was directed with equal 
zeal to revive and emulate the labours of antiquity. 
Prostrate obelisks were raised from the ground, and 
erected in the most conspicuous places ; of the eleven 
aqueducts of the Caesars and consuls, three were re- 
stored ; the artificial rivers were conducted over a long 



164 ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 

series of old, or of new, arches, to discharge into marble 
basins a flood of salubrious and refreshing waters ; and 
the spectator, impatient to ascend the steps of St. Peter's, 
is detained by a column of Egyptian granite, which 
rises betw^een two lofty and perpetual fountains, to the 
height of one hundred and twenty feet. The map, the 
description, the monuments of ancient Rome have been 
elucidated by the diligence of the antiquarian and the 
student ; and the footsteps of heroes, the relics, not of 
superstition, but of empire, are devoutly visited by a 
new race of pilgrims from the remote, and once savage, 
countries of the north. 

Of these pilgrims, and of every reader, the attention 
will be excited by an History of the Decline and Fall of 
the Roman Empire; the greatest, perhaps, and most 
awful scene in the history of mankind. The various 
causes and progressive effects are connected with many 
of the events most interesting in human annals : the 
artful policy of the Caesars, who long maintained the 
name and image of a free republic; the disorders of 
military despotism ; the rise, establishment, and sects 
of Christianity ; the foundation of Constantinople ; the 
division of the monarchy ; the invasion and settlements 
of the barbarians of Germany and Scythia; the insti- 
tutions of the civil law^; the character and religion 
of Mahomet ; the temporal sovereignty of the popes ; 
the restoration and decay of the Western empire of 
Charlemagne ; the crusades of the Latins in the East ; 
the conquests of the Saracens and Turks ; the ruin of 
the Greek empire ; the state and revolutions of Rome 
in the middle age. The historian may applaud the 
importance and variety of his subject ; but, while lie is 
conscious of his own imperfections, he must often accuse 



ILLUSTEATIVE SPECIMENS. 165 

the deficiency of his materials. It was among the ruins 
of the Capitol that I first conceived the idea of a work 
which has amused and exercised near twenty years of 
my life, and which, however inadequate to my o^vn 
wishes, I finally deliver to the curiosity and candour of 
the public. 



37. Burke's Defence of the Hereditary Princijjle, from 
his ''Reflections on the Bevolution in France:'' — 
1790. 

A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a 
selfish temper and confined views. People mil not look 
forward to posterity who never look backward to their 
ancestors. Besides, the people of England well know 
that the idea of inheritance furnishes a sure principle of 
conservation, and a sure principle of transmission ; with- 
out at all excluding a principle of improvement. It 
leaves acquisition free, but it secures what it acquires. 
Whatever advantages are obtained by a state proceeding 
on these maxims are locked fast as in a sort of family 
settlement, grasped as in a kind of mortmain for ever. 
By a constitutional policy, working after the pattern of 
nature, we receive, we hold, we transmit our government 
and our privileges, in the same manner in which we 
enjoy and transmit our property and our lives. The 
institutions of policy, the goods of fortune, the gifts of 
providence, are handed down to us, and from us, in the 
same course and order. Our political system is placed 
in a just coiTespondence and symmetry ^ith the order of 



166 ILLUSTRATIYE SPECIMENS. 

the world, and with the mode of existence decreed to a 
permanent body composed of transitoiy parts ; wherein, 
by the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, moulding 
together the great mysterious incorporation of the human 
race, the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle- 
aged, or young, but, in a condition of unchangeable 
constancy, moves on through the varied tenor of per- 
petual decay, fall, renovation, and progression. Thus, 
by preserving the method of nature in the conduct of 
the state, in what we improve we are never wholly new ; 
in what we retain we are never wholly obsolete. By 
adhering in this manner, and on those principles, to our 
forefathers, we are guided, not by the superstition of 
antiquarians, but by the spirit of philosophic analogy. 
In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame 
of policy the image of a relation in blood, binding up the 
constitution of our country with our dearest domestic 
ties ; adopting our fundamental laws into the bosom of 
family affections ; keeping inseparable, and cherishing 
with the warmth of all their combined and mutually 
reflected charities, our state, our hearths, our sepulchres, 
and our altars. 

Through the same plan of a conformity to natm^e in 
our artificial institutions, and by calling in the aid of 
her unerring and powerful instincts to fortify the fallible 
and feeble contrivances of our reason, we have derived 
several other, and these no small, benefits from con- 
sidering our liberties in the light of an inheritance. 
Always acting as if in the presence of canonised fore- 
fathers, the spirit of freedom, leading in itself to misrule 
and excess, is tempered with an awful gravity. This 
idea of a liberal descent inspires us with a sense of 
habitual native dignity, which prevents that upstart 



t> 



ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 167 

insolence almost inevitably adhering to and disgracing 
those who are the first acquirers of any distinction. By 
this means our liberty becomes a noble freedom, 
carries an imposing and majestic aspect. It has a^ 
gree and illustrious ancestors. It has its bearinaHKd 
its ensigns armorial. It has its gallery of portrai^«^ts 
monumental inscriptions ; its records, evidences, and 
titles. We procm^e reverence to our civil institutions 
on the principle upon which nature teaches us to revere 
individual men, on account of their age, and on account 
of those from whom they are descended. All your 
sophistries cannot produce any thing better adapted to 
preserve a rational and manly freedom than the course 
that we have pursued, who have chosen our nature 
rather than our speculations, our breasts rather than our 
inventions, for the great conservatories and magazines 
of our rights and privileges. 



38. From the Rev. Sydney Smith's Revieiv of FercivaVs 
'' Account of Ceylon ;" — 1803. 

Ceylon produces the elephant, the buffalo, tiger, elk, 
wild-hog, rabbit, hare, flying-fox, and musk-rat. Many 
articles are rendered entirely useless by the smell of 
musk, which this latter animal communicates in merely 
running over them. Mr. Percival asserts (and the fact 
has been confirmed to lis by the most respectable au- 
thority), that if it even pass over a bottle of wine, how- 
ever well corked and sealed up, the wine becomes so 
strongly tainted with musk that it cannot be used ; and 



168 ILLUSTKATIVE SPECIMENS. 

a whole cask may be rendered useless in the same 
manner. Among the great variety of birds, we were 
struck with Mr. Percival's account of the honey-bird, 
into whose body the soul of a common informer appears 
to have migrated. It makes a loud and shrill noise, to 
attract the notice of anybody whom it may perceive, and 
thus inducing him to follow the course it points out, 
leads him to the tree where the bees have concealed 
their treasure. After the apiar}^ has been robbed, this 
feathered scoundrel gleans his reward from the hive. 
The list of Ceylonese snakes is hideous, and we become 
reconciled to the crude and cloudy land in which we 
live, from reflecting that the indiscriminate activity of 
the sun generates what is loathsome, as well as what is 
lovely ; that the asp reposes under the rose, and the 
scorpion crawls under the fragrant flower and the luscious 
fruit. 

The usual stories are repeated here of the immense 
size and voracious appetite of a certain species of ser- 
pent. The best history of this kind we ever remember 
to have read, was of a serpent killed near one of our 
settlements in the East Indies, in whose body they 
found the chaplain of the garrison, all in black, the 

Rev. Mr. (somebody or other, whose name we have 

forgotten), and who, after having been missing for above 
a week, was discovered in this very inconvenient situa- 
tion. The dominions of the King of Candia are partly 
defended by leeches, which abound in the woods, and 
from which our soldiers suffered in the most dreadful 
manner. The Ceylonese, in compensation for their 
animated plagues, are endowed with two vegetable bless- 
ings, the cocoa-nut tree and the talipot tree. The lat- 
ter affords a prodigious leaf, impenetrable to sun or 



ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 169 

rain, and large enough to shelter ten men. It is a 
natural umbrella, and is of as eminent senice in that 
country as a great- coat tree would be in this. A leaf 
of the talipot tree is a tent to the soldier, a parasol to 
the traveller, and a book to the scholar.^ The cocoa- 
tree affords bread, milk, oil, wine, spirits, vinegar, yeast, 
sugar, cloth, paper, huts, and ships. 



89. The Linden Tree of the Odeschalchi Palace, on the 
Lake of Como ; from Landors " Imaginary Con- 
versations ;" — 1824. 

O who upon earth could ever cut down a linden ? I 
should not dare to break a twig from off one. To a 
linden was fastened the son of William Tell, when the 
apple was cloven on his steady head. Years afterwards, 
how often did the father look higher and lower, and 
search laboriously, to descry if any mark were remaining 
of the cord upon its bark ! how often must he have 
inhaled this very odour ! what a refreshment to a 
fathers breast! The flowers of the linden should be 
the only incense offered up in the chmxhes to God. 
Happy the man vhose aspirations are pure enough to 
mingle with it! 

How many fond and how many lively thoughts have 
been nurtm^ed under this tree ! how many kind hearts 
have beaten here ! Its branches ai^e not so nmnerous 
as the couples they have invited to sit beside it, nor its 
blossoms and leaves together as the expressions of ten- 

* AU "books are written upon it in Ceylon. 



ITO ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 

derness it has wdtnessed. What appeals to the pure 
all-seeing heavens ! what similitudes to the everlasting 
mountains ! what protestations of eternal truth and con- 
stancy ! — from those who are now earth — they, and 
their shrouds, and their coffins. The caper and figtree 
have split their monuments, and boys have broken the 
hazelnut with the fragments. 

To see this linden was worth a journey of five hun- 
dred miles. It looked directly up the lake, in the center 
of its extremity, and facing the boundary mountains of 
the Val-Tellina. 



40. Conclusion of Southeys ''History of the Peninsular 
TFar;"— 1832. 

This is the great and inappreciable glory of England 
in this portion of its history, that its war in the Penin- 
sula was in as strict conformity with the highest prin- 
ciples of justice as with sound state policy. No views 
of aggrandizement were entertained either at its com- 
mencement, or during its course, or at its termination ; 
conquests were not looked for, commercial privileges 
were not required. It was a defensive, a necessary, a 
retributive war ; engaged in as the best means of ob- 
taining security for ourselves, but having also for its 
immediate object ''to loose the bands of wickedness," 
and to break the yoke of oppression, and " to let the 
oppressed go free." And this great deliverance was 
brought about by England, with God's blessing on a 
righteous cause. If France has not since that happy 



ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 171 

event continued to rest under a mild and constitutional 
monarchy — if Spain has relapsed into the abuses of an 
absolute one — if the Portuguese have not supported that 
character which they recovered during the contest, — 
it has been because in all these instances there were 
national errors which retained their old possession, and 
national sins which were not repented of. But the 
fruits of this war will not be lost upon posterity; for 
in its course it has been seen that the most formidable 
military power w^hich ever existed in the civilized 
world was overthrown by resolute perseverance in a 
just cause ; it has been seen also that national inde- 
pendence depends upon national spirit, but that even 
that spirit in its highest and heroic degree may fail, 
if wisdom to direct it be wanting. It has been seen 
what guilt and infamy men, who might otherwise 
have left an honourable name, entailed upon them- 
selves, because, hoping to effect a just end by iniqui- 
tous means, they consented to a wicked usurpation, and 
upheld it by a system of merciless tyranny, sinning 
against their country and their own souls ; this was seen 
in the Spanish ministers of the Intruder ; and the 
Spanish reformers, more lamentably for Spain, but more 
excusably for themselves, have shown the danger of 
attempting to carry crude theories of government into 
practice, and hurrying on precipitate changes, from the 
consequences of w^hich men too surely look to despotism 
for protection or for deliverance. These lessons have 
never been more memorably exemplified than in the 
Peninsular War ; and, for her own peculiar lesson, 
England, it may be hoped, has learned to have ever 
from thenceforth a just reliance, under Providence, 
upon her resources and her strength ; — under Pro- 



172 ILLUSTEATIVE SPECIMENS. 

yidence, I say, for, if that support be disregarded, all 
other will be found to fail. 

My task is ended here : and if, in the course of this 
long and faithful history, it should seem that I have 
any where ceased to bear the ways of Providence in 
mind, or have admitted a feeling, or given utterance 
to a thought, inconsistent with glory to God in the 
highest, and good-will towards men, let the benevolent 
reader impute it to that inadvertence or inaccuracy of 
expression from which no diligence, however watchful, 
can always be secure ; and as such let him forgive what, 
if I were conscious of it, I should not easily forgive in 
myself. 



41. From Mr. Macaulai/s Essay on Bacon: — 1837. 

One of the most remarkable circumstances in the his- 
tory of Bacon's mind is the order in which its powers ex- 
panded themselves. With him the frviit came first and 
remained till the last ; the blossoms did not appear till 
late. In general, the developement of the fancy is to 
the developement of the judgment what the growth of a 
girl is to the growth of a boy. The fancy attains at an 
earlier period to the perfection of its beauty, its power, 
and its fruitfulness ; and, as it is first to ripen, it is also 
first to fade. It has generally lost something of its 
bloom and freshness before the sterner faculties have 
reached maturity; and is commonly withered and bar- 
ren while those faculties still retain all their energy. 
It rarely happens that the fancy and the judgment grow 



ILLrSTRATIYE SPECIMENS. 173 

together. It happens still more rarely that the judg- 
ment grows faster than the fancy. This seems, however, 
to have heen the case with Bacon. His hoyhood and 
youth appear to have been singularly sedate. His 
gigantic scheme of philosophical reform is said by some 
writers to have been planned before he was fifteen, and 
was undoubtedly planned while he was still young. He 
observed as vigilantly, meditated as deeply, and judged 
as temperately when he gave his first w^ork to the world 
as at the close of his long career. But in eloquence, in 
sweetness and variety of expression and in richness of 
illustration, his later writings are far superior to those of 
his youth. In this respect the history of his mind bears 
some resemblance to the history of the miud of Burke. 
The treatise on the Sublime and Beautiful, though written 
on a subject which the coldest metaphysician could hardly 
treat without being occasionally betrayed into florid 
writing, is the most unadorned of all Burke's works. It 
appeared w^hen he was twenty-five or twenty-six. When, 
at forty, he wrote the " Thoughts on the Causes of the 
existing Discontents," his reason and his judgment had 
reached their full maturity ; but his eloquence was still 
in its splendid dawn. At fifty his rhetoric was quite as 
rich as good taste would permit ; and, when he died, at 
almost seventy, it had become ungracefully gorgeous. 
In his youth he wrote on the emotions produced by 
mountains and cascades, by the master-pieces of paint- 
ing and sculpture, by the faces and necks of beautiful 
women, in the style of a parliamentary report. In his 
old age he discussed treaties and tariffs in the most 
fervid and brilliant language of romance. It is strange 
that the Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful, and the 
Letter to a Xoble Lord, should be the productions of 



174 ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS. 

one man. But it is far more strange that tlie Essay 
should have been a production of his youth, and the 
Letter of his old age. 



42. The Eldest and Youngest of Our Ladies of Sorrow ; 
from De Quincys '' Suspiria de Profundis:'' — 1845. 

The eldest of the three is named Mater Lachry- 
marum, Our Lady of Tears. She it is that night and 
day raves and moans, calling for vanished faces. She 
stood in Rama, when a voice was heard of lamentation, 
— Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be 
comforted. She it was that stood in Bethlehem on the 
night when Herod's sword swept its nurseries of Inno- 
cents, and the little feet were stiffened for ever, which, 
heard at times as they tottered along floors overhead, 
woke pulses of love in household hearts that were not 
unmarked in heaven. 

Her eyes are sweet and subtle, wild and sleepy by 
turns ; oftentimes rising to the clouds ; oftentimes 
challenging the heavens. She wears a diadem round 
her head. And I knew by childish memories that she 
could go abroad upon the winds, when she heard the 
sobbing of litanies or the thundering of organs, and 
when she beheld the mustering of summer clouds. 
This sister, the elder, it is that carries keys more than 
Papal at her girdle, which open every cottage and every 
palace. She, to my knowledge, sat all last summer by 
the bedside of the blind beggar, him that so often and 
so gladly I talked with, whose pious daughter, eight 



ILLUSTEATIVE SPECIMENS. 175 

years old, with the sunny countenance, resisted the 
temptations of play and village mirth, to travel all day 
long on dusty roads with her afflicted father. For this 
did God send her a great reward. In the spring-time 
of the year, and whilst yet her otmi spring was bud- 
ding, he recalled her to himself. But her blind father 
mourns for ever over her ; still he dreams at midnight 
that the httle guiding hand is locked within his ovrn ; 
and still he wakens to a darkness that is now within a 
second and a deeper darkness. ... By the power of 
her keys it is that our Lady of Tears glides a ghostly 
intruder into the chambers of sleepless men, sleejoless 
women, sleepless children, from Ganges to the Nile, 
from Nile to Mississippi. And her, because she is the 
first-born of her house, and has the widest empire, let 
us honour with the title of Madonna. 

But the third sister, who is also the voun^est ! 



Hush I whisper, whilst we talk of her ! Her kingdom 
is not large, or else no flesh should live ; but within that 
kingdom all power is hers. Her head, tmTeted like that 
of Cybele, rises almost beyond the reach of sight. She 
droops not ; and her eyes, rising so high, inight be 
hidden by distance. But, being what they are, they 
cannot be hidden ; through the treble veil of crape 
which she wears, the fierce light of a blazing misery, 
that rests not for matins or for vespers — for noon of day 
or noon of night — for ebbing or for flowing tide — may 
be read from the very ground. She is the defier of 
God. She also is the mother of lunacies, and the sug- 
gestress of suicides. Deep lie the roots of her power ; 
but narrow is the nation that she rules. For she can 
approach only those in whom a profound nature has 



] 76 ILLUSTKATIVE SPECIMENS. 

been upheaved by central convulsions ; in whom tb. 
heart trembles and the brain rocks under conspiracies 
of tempest from without and tempest from within 
Madonna moves with uncertain steps, fast or slow, but 
still with tragic grace. Our Lady of Sighs [the second 
sister] creeps timidly and stealthily. But this youngest 
sister moves with incalculable motions, bounding, and 
\^ith a tiger's leaps. She carries no key; for, though 
coming rarely amongst men, she storms all doors at 
which she is permitted to enter at all. And her name 
is Mater Tenebrarum — Our Lady of Darkness. 



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